 So, good evening everyone. My name is Lionel Barber. I'm the editor of the Financial Times and it gives me great pleasure to moderate this session which is entitled Closing Europe's Competitiveness Gap. We have a distinguished panel representing the whole of the political spectrum, government leaders, the business community and distinguished public servants. I'm going to just ask some questions very gently, as is my want, and then we'll throw it open to the audience in about half an hour's time. The first panelist I'd like to put a very gentle question to is Jose Manuel Barroso, who is the president of the European Commission. I asked this against a backdrop of many people's thinking and the mood around Davos this week is perhaps a return to normality, at least a semblance of normality with the Fed exiting from unconventional monetary policy, signs of definite recovery in many of the countries in Europe, and now the moment perhaps arrives where politicians need to grasp some of these very difficult structural problems on competitiveness. So, my first question is, actually isn't it more difficult now that the crisis, than the worst of the crisis seems over for political leaders to take those difficult decisions? Isn't it easier when crisis is sitting upon you? Yes, but nevertheless I prefer the situation like it is now, because frankly this is a very different situation. When we think when we were, some years ago, for instance in Davos meeting, predicting Greek exit, predicting sometimes the implosion of the euro, predicting even this integration of the European Union, and we see now that Greece is presiding over the European Union Council, and in fact the reaching is first historic primary surplus. That Ireland, I want to congratulate Prime Minister Tishok Kenny for the great success, not only exiting the program but also having now interest rates regarding their debt lower than countries that did not had to ask for a program. Or when we see Spain that also exit the program for the financial sector just yesterday from a formal point of view, and the confidence coming back, Portugal that if there are no accidents will exit the program in May, I mean, let's be honest, many people were predicting exactly the opposite. And that is, and I think it's important to understand why it was possible to change this. Now, it's true that the work is far from completed. We are not saying we are out of the crisis, we have turned the corner, but we cannot say we are out of the crisis with such high levels of unemployment. And so that's why we need to keep the momentum on the reforms, namely to fight with success these unacceptable levels of unemployment. So to answer your question very honestly, from a political point of view, yes, it may be sometimes a temptation to sit back and relax, but that's why we believe the public opinion or at least informed public opinion, the European institutions, the international organizations should keep the pressure not to give up on reforms, not to come back to business as usual, because in fact business as usual will not be possible, because we have to address in Europe some of problems of competitiveness, being clear that we have not, as some people suggest, an overall problem of competitiveness in Europe, we have some specific problems of competitiveness. If you look at the figures, Europe is the biggest trade player in the world. Europe has a surplus of 365 billion euros in trade of goods, by the way, also a very important surplus in services, that's more important sector, and also in the last years on agriculture. We don't have a surplus in raw materials and energy, of course. But in fact, if you look at aggregated figures of Europe and Eurozone, we are keeping basically the share of global trade we had 20 years ago. Some countries went down very much, others went up, it was a great success, while in the international scene, of course, we had China being the big winner, and others losing some part of their position. So that's why now we have to focus on competitiveness, and that we should do by deepening the internal market, external trade, that's why I'm pursuing a very offensive, external trade agenda from the successful conclusion of agreements with South Korea to Singapore. Now, to Canada, some weeks ago, Prime Minister Harper came to Brussels and finalized it, and now opening negotiations with Japan, and the base is a very important transatlantic trade-investment partnership with the United States, that will have a real transformative power for world economy. If we conclude it, I believe we can do it. So trade, internal and external, internal market, and of course some support to the research innovation, for instance, in our new budget of the European Union, we have put 80 billion euros. These are the areas of the future. So I think we are now, we have learned our lessons, but work is far from being concluded, no complacency, and if some leaders have the temptation to sit back and relax, they will hopefully hear some alarm bells telling, this is not the time to do it. Thank you. No chance of any complacency in Ireland. You've been through a wrenching adjustment process, Prime Minister. My question is, one, what do you think is the most important further reform you need to make in Ireland to maintain your competitiveness, and link to that, how much is your tax system critical to Irish competitiveness? Let me say a few things. First, if I may, we've come through a very torrid time in our country. Just a number of years ago, when over the edge, explosion boom in the property sector, dysfunctional banks, catastrophic economic situation, I came to Davos three years ago amidst disillusionment and despair, confusion, lack of reputation. Last year we came with a different story, and this year we come with a story of part of a journey being completed. We exited the bailout in December without a precautionary credit line. Moody's changed their credit rating of Ireland. Last week, five-year money was 1.7%, 10-year money is below 4%. This for a country where rates were 15% blocked out of all the markets just three years ago is remarkable from the people's point of view. We've had to make some very difficult decisions in the last three budgets. But what we tried to do was to have a clear strategy, a clear plan with signposts as part of a process to exit the bailout. We've done that. Simultaneously we publish a medium-term economic strategy from here to 2020, dealing with the momentum of having our deficit below 3%, recovering the jobs that were lost from reducing our debt. So there are still challenges ahead for Ireland. Absolutely no complacency. Let me say a few things. Tax. Our corporation tax is 12.5%. Statutory based across the board. It supplies in every sector and legally based. We've been the first to say that in respect of the BEPS issue at the OECD should deal with this in an international sense. There are 15 committees dealing with that. We participate in all of these. The double Irish as it was called was always an issue. It's as much to do with American legislation as Irish legislation. So our tax rate remains consistent. It is a matter of national competence and won't be changing. It's one issue insofar as Ireland is concerned in terms of its attractiveness. There are three others that are important. The first is technology. We can measure up to the technological challenge anywhere. Thirdly, it's the track record of productivity. The Irish have been a pragmatic race, never afraid of identifying the scale of a problem and deal with it. And the fourth and most important of all, Lionel, is the talent pool. Last year I opened a facility for a young American in the financial business. It came from New York. I asked him why he came to Dublin. He said two reasons. First of all, I want to come to a cosmopolitan city. Secondly, he said, I am blown away by the quality of the talent I see walking through the door. So we've got really strong demographics in terms of our education system, our capacity to be flexible, and our capacity to measure up to the jobs that are coming. Might I just say we can't afford as a European Union to mess around for 20 years like we've been doing with the Patents Directive and all of these things. Take the digital market. We know that the commission presented a report to the council quite recently saying there will be 800,000 jobs in the IT sector by 2015. Who is making arrangements for these to be taken up? Or will they be filled from other countries? That's an issue. And all of the current controversy about data protection is an issue that will put a break on the digital market. Now, I respect that you have to have privacy. You have to take account of legitimate concerns about data collection. But you have to bear in mind that the opportunity of having a digital single market is enormous, not just within Europe but beyond. And that's an issue that we do need to deal with. United States dealt quickly and decisively with their banking crisis. They put the sovereignty of the banks beyond doubt very quickly. In Europe, we've got to deal now with the single supervisory mechanism, the bank recovery directive, the setting in place of the common fund for restitution in banks. We need to deal with these things quickly. For Ireland, in terms of competitiveness, line of investment into the country is very strong. The exports are really rising. We've tried in our budgets not to tax work. We didn't change the income tax regime. We've maintained our corporate tax. We've improved the position in so far as research, development and innovation is concerned. And that's attractive. We've got to continue to deal with elements of a restructured banking system, access to credit, mortgage distress and other reforms that are in there. And we continue the momentum that we've built up over the last number of years where I see our people at long last with a sense of confidence beginning to return. But let me temper that by saying we recognize the scale of the challenge up ahead. And that's why commission have been very supportive of Ireland or colleague countries have been very supportive. So if you like, when Moody's changed their rating of Ireland last week, it had an impact on base rates in Portugal, in Italy and in Spain. And these are international signals that are important. And for me, as a Taoiseach, it's important to have people understand that this was an enormous shock for our country and for our people. But they've seen that as part of a process. The government have a duty to maintain momentum where there are brighter days ahead. Projections for growth this year, 2%. We'd like to see an average of 3% from next year right through to 2020 when we can have our debt reduced, have our deficit in order and recover the jobs that were lost. So there are elements of competitiveness at home and from a European perspective that are really important. And I'll finally say this, Lionel. For us it was have a plan, have a strategy, have the courage and the conviction to follow it through. Its consistency leads to stability. Stability leads to investment, investment leads to jobs and that's a society that every country can be proud of. It can be a model in many ways for what we need to do at a European level. Thank you Taoiseach. I'd like to come back to that important theme that you alluded to on the digital revolution. But for the moment, I'm going to turn to Angel Gorea, who is the Secretary General of the OECD, renowned. Your organisation is renowned for its penetrating analysis of the European economy. And so I have to ask you, given when I first went to Brussels as correspondent for the Financial Times back in 1992, one of the first jobs I did was to write about Jacques Delors' white paper on employment competitiveness and growth. Where he warned that Europe faced a choice between survival and decline. And then 10 years later we had another summit in Lisbon where Europe was going to be the most competitive economic zone by 2010 actually, four years gone past. Why should we believe it's any different this time? Well, because you should not underestimate the capacity of people to learn from their own mistakes. Second, because the problem with Europe is the scaffolding. You go there, you save three years to go to Europe and you go to Ilduomo or you go to Notre Dame and it's covered with this black tarpaulin and the traffic is detoured and there's a lot of noise and there's dust and you can't get the light to the windows. And you're so disappointed. There's a lot of work under the... You go three years later and you take off the scaffolding and it's awesome. Well, I think you can accuse the Europeans of everything except of being very fast. They take their time. But what is being happening is that Europe is rebuilding itself, redesigning itself, reinventing itself, strengthening itself and this is happening all the time and this is transforming this largest single market unit, largest single economic unit, etc. into eventually with a single market promise into a formidable player which is in everybody's benefit. Now, the question is, is it all rosy? No. I mean, we are celebrating the fact. I remember when Spain moved to 0.1 but of course it was in the black rather than the red, 0.1 and we celebrated. We were commemorating because it's several quarters of being negative. We were saying with Mr. Sacomani, when we said we see third quarter perhaps fourth quarter Italy moving into positive territory. We're talking about the year of 2013 having been a negative on the average for the Euro area. So you're talking about a pretty tough situation that we're coming out from and we're only emerging. You know, water is now we can breathe a little bit more. It's not that anybody is tolling the bells and saying we're out of the problem. There still remain a lot of downside risks and there are institutional issues that have to be addressed. But what are the issues where we can say it's improving? Well, the debt, I mean, 10 billion for 10 years at 3.8 or something like that for Spain. I mean, four times subscribed. You know, who would have thought about that? Who would have said that this was going to happen? Portugal, Ireland, of course, is going back to market. We praised Ireland so much that, you know, we've been praising Ireland now for a few months, more than a year now, but they've done great. They've gotten out, but still now the question is, what about the growth? And we've used a lot of the monetary policy room. We've lost a lot of the fiscal policy room. In fact, we're trying to do fiscal consolidation, etc. So what is there out there that we now have to focus on? Well, good old-fashioned structural change, education, innovation, more competition, better competition, better regulation, flexibility in the labor markets, flexibility in the product markets, the R&D issues, the health systems, the way you finance infrastructure, the climate change. Bravo, José Manuel. Bravo for the climate change policy announced by the Commission yesterday. You're regaining the leadership on an area where we're losing ground altogether. So I'd say that the homework is out there. The challenge is going to be to get it going. And there's a very asymmetrical progress. There's been massive fiscal consolidation, four or five points of GDP. There's been a lot of structural reform in countries like Spain. It's back to, I mean, Spain was 10% deficit of GDP, people lose track of the size of the transformation, 10 points of GDP, and now they're balanced in the current account. They have a surplus with the rest of Europe, and they're going again, and the unemployment has stopped growing. These are very dramatic examples and the flexibility that some countries have built in. Talk about the other side of, you know, the pricing, Sweden all the time. Well, Sweden built in the room to then say, okay, we're going to do a little bit of fiscal stimulus at this stage. Well, because we have a very high unemployment for the youth. So you have built in the space to even correct those issues. And I'll just finish by saying my greatest concern now is to continue. Reform, reform, reform. That is the only way. Your first question to José Manuel was very well put. Thank you. It's a very, very insightful question. People always do better in crises for whatever reason. We should understand that the fact that the crisis has not been left behind, but is kind of a, we're moving towards that, is not good enough. We should really make big progress towards transforming Europe. Thank you so much, Mr. Secretary-General. I can't resist your wonderful image of the scaffolding in Europe and the tarpaulin. So I'm coming to Fabrizio Sacomani, distinguished public servant, finance minister of Italy. And my question is, in Italy, when we look at the scaffolding and the tarpaulin, when we pull aside, are we going to see the Uffizi, which is a wonderful building, but it's a museum? Or are we going to see some truly modern architecture with lots of people employed in the new building in Italy? Well, we certainly hope so, although if we only had modern buildings, I don't think we will have too many tourists coming to see Italy. But I think, again, like the prime minister before, I'll make a step backward and recall that when we took office at the beginning of May, Italy was in the midst of a still of a very severe recession. The first two quarters of 2013 were very negative and there were political factors behind. And so our strategy was basically to do three things. One was to revive the economy. Two was to stay within the European guidelines for fiscal consolidation and budgetary control. And three, reopen the chapter of economic and institutional reforms. Now, I think if we look back after seven months and a half, I think we have accomplished the three objectives. I mean, the economy stabilized in the third quarter, flat, and we have a strong indication that growth has been resumed in the fourth quarter. And it will grow by about 1%. I know that the European Commission and also the Bank of Italy estimate somewhat lower, but their econometric models do not factor in fully certain measures that we have taken like the repayment of arrears by local governments and other incentives. But let's stay with that. It is going to be around 1%. So then we finally concluded the excessive deficit procedure under the European rules, which was important. We are a high debt country. For us, it is very important to show that there is a consistent pattern of fiscal consolidation that is not going to be changed as government change. And in the meantime, one structural reform that we did was that we embodied in the Constitution the balance budget principle in structural terms, which was something that a lot of people were very skeptical about, would you ever be possible for Italy to reform the Constitution, which is a complicated thing in itself, and to introduce the balance budget principle. But we did it. And the third thing, I think we reopen the reform chapter, because I think the competitiveness issue is not simply an issue of unit labor cost, as it is sometimes for the sake of simplicity projected. I think the competitiveness in Italy needs certainly to be improved, because that is the source of employment and it has to be improved in the private sector, because again, that is the source of employment. Still, the Italian economy and the manufacturing sector, which is one of the largest in Europe, the second largest, according to certain estimates after Germany, is a dual system. There are strong, competitive, medium-sized enterprises that are doing very well in the international markets, and they have been the source of the improvement in our balance of payments throughout this period of crisis. There are the small enterprises which are catering mostly to the domestic market. They do have a problem, and we are trying to help them. So the institutional reform chapter looks at the competitiveness issue in a number of ways. Okay, we have taken measure to reduce the so-called tax wedge. We reduce the taxes on labor and enterprises, but of course we have to increase taxes on other form of tax payers, mostly the financial sector for which there was a strong popular demand after the crisis. And then we have done a number of other things, a program of privatization, a program of spending review, which is the fact, a program of reform in the public sector activity, the public administration, and then of course all this together I think will in our view provide a strong push to improve competitiveness. But let me end by saying that there is a European dimension to the competitiveness of Europe, and this has to be addressed in a cooperative and coordinated fashion. I'm thinking of the report that Mario Monti wrote to you, President Barroso, before becoming Prime Minister on the need to build sort of the infrastructures of a single market, to look at the service sector, to look at the energy sector, which we, you know, it is an important factor in the competitiveness of a country like Italy, because you know energy is very expensive in Europe. And then finally there is the issue of financial market fragmentation, which again we are going to try to address at the European level through the banking union, but it has been reflected in the fact that a company in Lombardy pays a higher cost of credit than a company in Bavaria, even if they're equally productive and competitive. And that is sort of a legacy of the crisis which we're trying to get rid of through the activity of the European Central Bank, but also with this ambitious project of banking union. Thank you very much, Mr. Saccamani. I want to turn now to the private sector, the CEO of Siemens, a major German player, Joe Kaiser. We talk about competitiveness as was alluded to earlier. Europe enjoys a significant disadvantage now on energy costs, particularly because of the shale gas revolution in America, and it's got a significant competitiveness problem on the digital side alluded to by the TESU. America, for example, has many more big software providers. America uses the public use of the cloud two and a half times or so higher in America than in Europe, and Europe also suffers from a fragmented telecoms market. So these are significant obstacles. From your perspective, what can be done to close that gap, looking at those big, big problems? Well, first of all, congratulations to the Irish Republic for a job which I believe has been done very well, and all the best to the ones who are still on the way to get there. I'm really glad that I hear a lot of optimism about the European recovery, and it's good because if the mood changes to the better, this is always a good start. But the question is, are we really there yet? Have we seen that recovery? Do we feel good because what we see is good, or do we feel good because we just have eased the pain? How many jobs have we created? How many of those millions and millions of jobless people in Europe have we put into jobs again? How many of those young people who are waiting for a job and an education have we put into a qualified training? How many did we do? So is that already a recovery, or is it just about easing the pain? A couple of quarters ago, the analysts have been asking me about why are you not moving out of Europe? You've got to go to the emerging economy. This is where your fortune is going to be. Three, four quarters ago. Today, everyone says you've got to stay in Europe because Europe is going to recover. Emerging economies have all that trouble about Asian trouble and Arab Spring and what have you. So at that time, I said already, well, let those people go to the emerging economies and I stay home then there is no one else to supply my customers in Europe. But then another question is, are we really done? And what does it take now from going to a stage where we hopefully killed the dragon? How can we now move on to conquer the princes? So what does it take to make this Europe again a place worthwhile working and growing? And I believe it's actually three things we've got to do, maybe even four. And I call it the four eyes. One is about innovation. The other one is about infrastructure. It is about basically integration of people in Europe. And obviously it's about industrialization. Those are the areas we now need to focus in Europe to build this that it's going to build to be lasting. That's what I mentioned. The actual question was about digital disadvantages in Europe and the energy costs. Would you like to address that? Look, I mean, we do respect the software and the digitization all across the world and we are very mindful about it. And digitization will change the world. It will change the energy. It will especially change it in the way we do industrialization, manufacturing and those type of things. We are very mindful about those companies who want to go in that space. But though everyone who wants to come and enter that space, they should know we are there already. And we know our customers and we know how to manufacture and we know how to equip factories and we know how to build productivity. So in essence, what this takes is that we really, you know, educate our people about the digitization that we understand what does it take? What is that paradigm shift all about? You know, how can we move from hardware to software driven industry 4.0? And we have all the cards. We have all the cards in Europe if it comes to technology, innovation and know how. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Prime Minister Reinfeld of Sweden, your country in many ways is a poster child for a model for being a competitive country. You went through a severe crisis, banking crisis in 1993, maybe took a decade or more to work through it. But after that you learn, you absorb these lessons. Can you perhaps tell this audience and maybe about the Swedish experience and what lessons you learned and how you've applied them? Yes, we had a loose control of our economy in the 80s because we had very high inflation. We met a lot of this with the valuation of our currency, which did not confront the problem of competitiveness. Going into the 90s, we got a Swedish finish, you could say, downfall of demand and a banking crisis. And we learned a lot because we needed new regulations out to handle bank in a crisis. We actually nationalized a few banks and we learned a hard lesson that if you don't have a control of your financial system, you will end up with a lot of the bills sent to your taxpayers. So we've been engaged very much in getting our public finances in control, confronting our competitiveness problems and at the same time making sure that we have a sound banking sector. And I think this proved very much when the financial crisis hit Europe in 2008 that we were somewhat better prepared with better order in public finances and maybe also better prepared in how to handle with a bank in distress, so to speak. I think that it's very important to say that you never get back to business as usual. It's always new market conditions that you will face. There is always a new business cycle, business logic that when you come out of any crisis. And I think this is also true for Europe. I think it's very interesting to follow how digitalization reshapes markets and that it's very important also for Europe to be at the front of this. For instance, I think we have had a lot of discussions on the single market relating to trade in products. But I think it's very important also to say that a lot of the job creation is now done in services or in a combination of products and services. And we're not as good on that as we have been on products in itself. I very much welcome this talks that we're having with United States and Japan. If we could engage in that, I think this is very important, but we should also see that we still have a lot of obstacles inside Europe between our neighbouring countries, which is actually a kind of protectionism, a hinder for trade. This is not good for Europe and definitely not for countries like Sweden. So let us be humble to say that we have a lot more to do there. Europe could be stronger if we open up to competition rather than trying to shelter ourselves for global or even European competition, because it will not make us competitive. I also think it's very important because my experts now tell me that the 7 billion people on our world will be 9 billion, but the increase will come in Asia and in Africa and not really in Europe. So we cannot rely on more people on our continent. Well, then this should be the continent open for people to come from other parts of the world, being better to integrate them into our labour markets. That is actually the knowledge we already have. The ones that come to Sweden, comes to other countries. They work more than the people actually that are very often in place in that country because they come in midlife. We talked too little about this. We talked too much about pushing away people, sheltering ourselves. That's not the way to meet the future for Europe. So here I think we have a lot more to do, especially now, as you said, when conditions are a little bit better and there is a risk that we turn in another direction. Have you passed those constructive remarks on immigration to your fellow Conservative Prime Minister in Britain, David Cameron? I think we took the decision not to have these special regulations from citizens coming from Bulgaria and Romania. We have not seen any of these negative effects that are related to in the debate. I think, again, integration was one of your points. You can do so much more with integration. A problem for us is that we have a very small language. Not everyone in the world speaks Swedish. I know this. But we are trying to focus on learning people coming to Sweden to learn Swedish and also educating them as much as possible because then we will get into the workforce. A lot of the increase in jobs we have seen in Sweden are actually to people that are born outside of Sweden. They are now giving us the resources to be able to uphold our welfare ambitions because, as everyone else, we have an ageing population and we need more working hours to be able to uphold the quality of our welfare ambitions. Before I throw the questions open the floor, can I just ask President Barossa a very short question? Can you offer a very short answer? Do you believe that the anti-immigration parties will do very well in the European elections? I think they will have better resulted in the past, clearly, and that's the challenge and the danger. That's why I'm calling mainstream parties to leave the comfort zone and to speak up for Europe and to speak to explain, as Prime Minister Reinfeld just said, why we cannot give up on freedom of movement in Europe. That's one of the greatest achievements. But while I expect those nationalistic, sometimes xenophobic parties to come up, I think they will not reach a mass where they will become really a problem in terms of decisions in the European Parliament, so they will not be able to block legislation. But it's, in fact, a good thing that we have elections. I'm a Democrat. I think it's good that we give up the idea that we can do European integration by implicit consent. We have to win that debate, and that's why I've been calling the mainstream political parties from the center left to the center right to the center itself to come and explain, because of course Europe cannot be done only by Brussels. Europe is a collective effort at all levels of leadership and also with our citizens. Thank you, Mr. President. So we've got questions from the floor. Could you just stand up? Don't make a statement, please, but ask a question and identify yourself. Thank you very much. Lionel, Ted Smith, McGraw-Hill Financial. It's wonderful to have a discussion without uncompetitiveness, not talking about wages. It may be the first time in about a century. How replicable is the Irish growth formula in the rest of Europe? Every party is pro-business. Digital-educated. Got the question. Excellent. Tisek. What is the question? How important is it that wages are kept low in order to... I thought you were saying that they should come into it. Do you want to ask a very simple question? That's good. Very refreshing. How replicable is the Irish growth formula in the rest of Europe? Okay. Is the Irish model for export? Is that what you're saying? It's export. It gave all the competitive elements. Wages was not one of them. Okay. One of the things that we had to do was to introduce a policy which we call Haddington Road, because it was defined there. They actually got all of the trade unions in the country to back it, which would give millions of hours of extra work with no increase in pay, no increments, up until 2016. It's a remarkable achievement that people themselves were able to see in a pragmatic sense that nobody was going to come in and sort out our problems for us. They've all agreed after intense negotiations, I have to say, adopted by a Labour minister, and agreed on that. I think, Lion, the important thing for us, and it's a message for everybody else, when you spoke to Friedrich about this before, that you've got to identify the problem, the scale of it, the nature of it, level with the people, tell them what the problem is, and don't try to pull the wool over their eyes by saying, all is well, and we've turned the corner on green shoots and all of this, and their sons and daughters are in America, or in Australia, or Britain, or wherever, but the important thing is to have the strategy and plan to deal with that, and follow your bailout, have your strategy and plan to deal with that. Now, I'd like to say, we created 58,000 new jobs last year. Two-thirds of those were in firms that are less than five years old, and that means that in the next five to ten years, the majority of jobs would be created by companies that have not even been heard of yet. We had a web summit in Dublin last autumn, 10,000 entrepreneurs, thinkers, innovators turned up at that, and they're creating the future that is coming at us with great speed. So we do need to invest as a union in the infrastructure to cater for the next 50 years, technology, smart transport, the grid, the energy that all have discussed about here. But also, like, if we're serious about it, how can we stand over a situation that 69 million young people aren't employed? We've got to show them that politics works. So it is about using the mechanisms and the tools that we have at our disposal. Prime Minister Reinfeldt made the point at lunch today, like, you don't have to reinvent the wheel here. We've got the mechanisms and the tools to do it now if you've got the courage and the conviction to carry it through. Thank you very much. You certainly have levelled with the people over the years, a couple of years ago. In fact, you got into slightly hot water here when you said that Ireland had gone on a tremendous party, borrowing like crazy. In fact, you might say that it might be good now if they spent a bit more, but just today, but that's another matter. President Barroso. On this specific issue, my answer is the following. There is not one single model in Europe. There are very different models. There are countries where the model is close to Ireland. Some of them in the new member states, for instance, Slovakia, in terms of the low corporate tax, it's a very interesting model, whereby they are attracting very important investments. There are others in terms of digitalization, including new member states like Estonia. There are, in fact, leaders, world leaders. But look, the critical issue is not one single issue. It's a mix. The model of taxation in Sweden is completely different from Ireland. In fact, Sweden has one of the highest taxation relating to the GDP, and Sweden is one of the most competitive countries in the world. So that's why we have to avoid simplistic things. It's not one factor. There are many factors. And what we have to do every country is to work for increasing its competitiveness, and also at European level, with the support of the countries, because without that support, we cannot act also on it. As Mr. Sakomani said, a European competence to deepen internal markets, to have trade abroad. So there are also tasks at European level where we need the cooperation of our member states. Okay. Mr. Secretary General, very briefly. Otherwise, nobody is going to ask a question, but please go ahead. On the question of wages, I mean, the fact that we didn't mention wages, it's okay, but please, you know, let's not dilute ourselves. In for 15 years, wages in France, in Italy, in Greece, in Portugal, in Ireland were way above productivity. In Germany, they called it Das Crocodile. You know, the jaws were opening up with such differences. And obviously, if you have the same currency, that is a massive competitive disadvantage. Now, what has happened in since 2012, 2011, 2012 in some countries, is that you have three or four of those countries, including Ireland, that are converging in terms of the real wages. That means you have to do the real economy, tighten your belt because you have the same currency, the same interest rates, the same trade rules. You couldn't cheat anybody because you were subjected by the same discipline. And then there was a real tough adjustment. Greece, for example, etc. Now, what happens? Not everybody has gone to the inflection point, and not everybody's coming down at the same speed. And therefore, those competitive differences remain in many countries. The speed is a differential speed, and that still has to be fixed, still has to be addressed. So the fact that we didn't mention labor is because perhaps labor has been too much in the picture, and some of the other structural measures, like education or renovation, or the tax structure or whatever, has not been enough. Now, it's time to go into what I would call the second generation, second derivative of reforms. Okay. And if the crocodiles' jaws are closing, who's being chewed up? What is happening is that Europe as a whole, not just Germany, is recovering its competitiveness, and now all of these European countries have a current account balance or surplus. This is a massive difference in a relatively short period of time. So there's a smile on the face of the crocodile. Can I? Yes, please. And then, otherwise, I'm going to get lifted. It's an interesting story. You mentioned Lionel Barber, very well. 92, Jack the Law, presenting the competitiveness and employment report. I was at the European Council. I was foreign minister of my country at that moment, and I heard him presenting very brilliantly. But I remember not only the report, by the way, the report was comparing Europe with the United States, with Japan, and with the South-East Asia Tigers, not with China. At that time, China did not appear. And I remember not only the report, but Elmwood Cole remark. And Elmwood Cole said, Jack, very great report. Good. But after all, what matters is this. Our countries cannot live above their means. Well, that's the problem. The problem was that some of our countries, as Angel Guria just said, were living for some time above their means. Exactly the countries that were having high unit labor costs, much higher than productivity, were exactly the targets of the markets, in some cases with other problems in the financial sector. But in fact, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Greece, and Italy were the most vulnerable countries of the markets. And we see it's a mathematical correlation with the evolution years before. Of course, afterwards, there were different conditions. But this is the message that I remember Cole saying in 92. 92 or 93. I was in the council. A country cannot live for long above its means. Actually, thank you very much for that intervention. Somebody in, everybody's getting a chance in the front row, but there we are. Olivier Marchal from Bain and Company. I have a question for President Barroso. It's a question about a country which I hope is not the elephant in the room, but happens to be the second largest economy in the eurozone, so France. I'd like to know how you assess the current pace of reform in France, not just pace of announcements, but reform, and in which areas you would like France to move at a more Irish pace? We have been saying that very frankly, publicly and privately, to the French authorities that the France should accelerate the pace of reforms. Some started, like the labor market reform, by the way with social dialogue. We believe taxation is critically important to reform. We are happy now with some statements made, namely the last statements made by President Hollande, recognizing that the way it is working, the fiscal system in France, it's indeed not only overburdened for the companies, but really a problem for French competitors. I hope that France will pursue a redetermination reform. In fact, European Commission may have proposed to give France more time to adjust in terms of the budget, two years instead of one, precisely because one of the reasons we wanted to avoid the argument of the so-called austerity coming from Brussels, that it's all about fiscal consolation. No, it's not just about fiscal consolation. I would say it's mostly about the need to have competitive reforms. Just yesterday I was looking at the last pool of public opinion in France, and one of the important things is a cultural issue that we have to address and discuss. A huge majority of our French citizens, they fear globalization. They think globalization is a problem. It's a threat. While in other countries in Europe, Sweden is an example, Denmark is another one, Ireland, globalization is seen as an opportunity. This goes beyond some measures of the government. This goes about some kind of a cultural change that I think leaders from the center right to the center left have to make because France, as I've sometimes said, it's a malade imaginaire, because it's a country with a huge potential. We go to the far east, you see all the great brands of France, but some of the French political elites have a defensive attitude towards globalization. When in fact France is not only one of the two biggest economies in Europe, it's one of the biggest economies in the world with great assets, great culture, great great people, but this attitude I think it's indeed a problem. I think if I was a French leader I would not like to see many of my brightest young people going to the city of London instead of being there or to the universities of the United States. This has to do with a broad sense of cultural issues with political culture and financial culture in a country that, as Michel Crozier said many years ago, there is still associative loquay and I think there is a great potential in that country and I hope that there will be a necessary consensus to move in this direction. There is awareness on leadership. There is a very frank discussion also regarding the difference of comparison with Germany. That's awareness but now of course we need to make things happen. I mean in terms of reinforcing momentum for reform. So less la malade imaginaire, more les femmes savant. Okay, another question from the audience. Thank you. My name is Kjell Jonsson. I'm the President of European Operations for Telenor and Norwegian Telecom Operator. Let me in defiance of the moderator start with a statement. People, we bought an operator in Bulgaria last year and don't let ever people make you say that the population is not a resource and a potential that they are a problem, then we are fundamentally wrong. Good people can always be motivated and do a great job. You spoke about telecom and I will ask President Borolso directly. How can it be that a company like ours that derives 45% of our revenues from Asia find it easier to pursue a green field in Myanmar than to pursue in market consolidation in Europe? When Europe is the biggest trading block in the world, we have free movement of capital, we have free movement of people, we find it extremely hard because we go country by country in evaluating the consolidation opportunities. How can we get past that? Thank you very much. I'm afraid this is going to have to be the last question because I'm under strict orders to close this off at 7.15. Please, Mr President. Because precisely we have not yet an internal market for telecommunications that we have been pushing our member states to accept. Because there are in fact absurd borders, even if the digital, I mean there are no borders, now physical borders, I mean they are not respected for the trade of goods, but still today you pay a different roaming if you go from one part to the another one to other in Europe. By the way, the European Commission has now made proposals that there was progress in terms of this roaming issue. So in fact we cannot take all the benefit and the potential of the internal market of Europe because we still have a fragmented internal market while we have a completely free internal market for goods and you can go from one point of Europe to the other and we don't see any kind of barrier. We don't have it yet as Frederick Heinfeld from Sweden said, Prime Minister Sweden said, on services where there are some strings to some resistance not only from or not mainly from the periphery countries, but sometimes from the most central countries that are resisting that and also on telecommunications. But the Commission has been putting forward legislation and to complete that internal market and so to have a level playing field at European level for the telecoms. Thank you very much, Mr President. I would like to ask you to join me in thanking the panel, particularly those who've been telling important stories, for example the Tiseg of Ireland about painful but necessary measures clearly explained and then seeing the benefits coming through and then the historical example in Sweden and also as you say, Mr Sakamani, it's not going to be the effiti. It's going to be that modern building with the tourists. Thank you very much.