Remarks by Council President Van Rompuy ahead of the G20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico

18 June 2012

Mr Van Rompuy said that the G20 should deliver a strong and credible message on growth and job creation, with enhanced commitment and cooperative action.

"The commitments under the Los Cabos Growth and Jobs Action Plan - that will come out from this summit – reflect the intense work the European Union and the euro area members are doing to preserve the stability and the integrity of the eurozone and to promote growth.

We continue also combining three ways of tackling this crisis:

• reforms at the level of the Member States and at the level of the euro area;
• promoting economic growth with an active agenda on investment and at the same time ensuring differentiated fiscal consolidation;
• crisis management with new financial and governance tools (for instance recapitalising the banks) and at the same time deepening our economic and monetary union, so that the euro becomes an irreversible project.

There are no contradictions between these avenues. Reforms are undertaken in our Member States to bolster competitiveness and are even reshaping economic structures in some of them to an unprecedented extent. As indicated by the OECD, euro area Member States have been amongst those delivering the most in terms of structural reforms. I would also like to point to recent, again positive, IMF reviews of the adjustment programmes in Portugal and Ireland.

There is our ongoing and reinforced growth and jobs agenda. We will not spend our way out of the crisis, but we will exploit all pockets of growth and employment, especially for youth:

• We will exploit our common policies. The internal market (also on energy, digital) and international trade contain untapped reservoirs of growth and jobs. If we succeed in opening them up, results will be rapid.
• We will use our common budget and the European Investment Bank to supply over the next few years very substantial investment funds to the real economy, for innovation, SMEs and infrastructure, across the EU. Competitiveness, investment and trade will be key.
• In the upcoming years, we expect discipline and reforms to yield results. If not all, many euro countries are quickly rebuilding their health. Competitiveness will bolster growth.

Full speech

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