SPEECH

José Manuel Durão Barroso

President of the European Commission

Statement at the press conference following the Informal meeting of Heads of State and Government

Brussels, 11 February 2010

This was indeed a good first meeting in new format. I welcome the excellent cooperation with the President of the European Council Mr Van Rompuy. And today was about two main things – responding together to crucial issues facing the European Union right now and also discussing the strategy for the European economy in the future, what we call Europe 2020: a sustainable growth and jobs strategy.

First of all we have decided a statement that is available to all of you and shows our confidence in Greece and in the Eurozone. I really believe it is important to have this strong commitment from all Heads of State and Government regarding the Eurozone and regarding the situation that is being faced by one specific member of our Union . I can tell you that I saw a clear determination to act. In fact a clear lesson from the financial crisis and all the difficulties in the economic situation worldwide is that we are more interdependent than ever before and by supporting one, we defend all our economies.

Afterwards we have also discussed the strategy for the future, of course linking the present to the future. That was one of the main points - we cannot ever agree a strategy that is in contradiction with our medium and long-term strategy. And here too, the Commission will act with ambition. I welcome the strong backing for the ideas I have presented on an economic strategy for the next decade: sustainable growth and jobs strategy, the European 2020 strategy.

As the President of the European Council said, I can see that there was a strong backing in the European Council for the ideas put forward by himself and by myself, regarding the directions for this strategy in the future. I really welcome this consensus. My presentation made a reference to three main drivers – growth, based on knowledge and innovation, an inclusive high-employment society and greener growth. We will develop them in the Commission and we will come with a package of proposals on the 3 rd of March which will, afterwards of course the subject of the discussion in the European Spring Council.

To build tomorrow's Europe we must draw the lessons about our interdependence. Today our priorities should be to show the way out of the crisis while building a new economic model: sustainable, inclusive, competitive, social market economy for Europe .

We have the Institutions to make it happen. After our discussions today, I am confident that Europe also has the political will and I welcome the spirit I saw today in the informal European Council regarding the specific situation in one of our Member states in the Euro area but also on the designing of this strategy for the future.

We have also briefly discussed another important point. In the light of an appeal by the Prime Minister of Haiti for urgent additional assistance with shelter endorsed by the United Nations, the High Representative and Vice President of the Commission Catherine Ashton is requesting Member States for additional military assistance to meet this specific need. In fact Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also called me yesterday making, among other points, a reference to this.

This second appeal for military assistance is being staffed by ILCO Haiti. This assistance is intended to complement those provided by the humanitarian community and it is being coordinated in closer association with the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism, known as the MIC. So I think it was important also to take note of this willingness of the European Union to keep our solidarity to Haiti and not forget the people of Haiti that are still in very difficult circumstances.

Thank you