EU must speak with one voice: Barroso
BUDAPEST. March 5. KAZINFORM The European Commission's chief on Thursday repeated his call for EU member states to speak with one voice through tighter political coordination; Kazinform refers to Xinhua.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso made the call while addressing the European People's Party congress here.
The chief also called for protection of the EU's social welfare achievements while maintaining a market economy and keeping national budgets on target.
Barroso said the new Europe 2020 strategy had been designed to restore growth and to boost economic, social and regional cohesion in a bid to increase the competitiveness of the EU as a whole.
But he warned that social benefits had to be retained and that growth had to be "wise" and sustainable.
The global economic downturn proved the interdependence of national economies, Barroso said, underlining that market economies with strong social welfare components represented the true value of the EU, though its members were undergoing very hard times; Kazinform cites Xinhua.
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