FOI participates at UNICE meeting with EU commissioners

In the framework of the UNICE-BOSMIP (Business Organisations as Single Market Integration Players) programme, leaders of UNICE's member federations, including FOI president Anton Borg, met EU Commissioner Gunter Verheugen and eight commissioners from the new member states, including Maltese Commissioner Joe Borg, in Brussels on July 8.

UNICE and the Commissioners discussed how the enlarged Europe could be brought back onto the competitiveness track and how the EU should develop in the future.

Mr Borg was the moderator of the first session, which was titled "The European Union in a competitive world". He emphasised how the EU needs to revive the Lisbon Agenda and how EU enlargement should contribute to this process of change.

The FOI welcomes the agreement on the Constitutional Treaty and the nomination of a new Commission President. The time is now ripe to get on with our business - that of strengthening Europe's competitiveness and Europe's economic power on the international stage.

The time for analysis and debate is over. The time is ripe for action, especially by national governments, to deliver on the commitments they made four years ago in Lisbon.

The FOI actively monitors the Lisbon Agenda and how Malta performs across the various structural indicators. It is important to recall that we are fast approaching the mid-term review and certain fundamental decisions need to be taken by the different member states, including Malta, to address the various gaps in the different subject headings so that the EU really becomes the most dynamic, knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010.

Mr Borg was accompanied by Leonard Mizzi, director, Malta Business Bureau (MBB) in Brussels, and Janine Borg, MBB policy officer, who are both representatives of the FOI and the Malta Chamber of Commerce and Enterprise in Brussels.