Going for growth and employment

When the Vice- President of the European Commission, Günter Verheugen, landed in Malta last Wednesday, he immediately decided to speak to the reporters present. He pointed out that this was the first time he was visiting Malta since our accession to the European Union, and that despite our size it was clear that Malta was having an impact on the EU.

Clearly, Mr Verheugen cares about our country and when he was Commissioner responsible for enlargement, he had done all he could to facilitate our country's EU membership. From the moment that I had the privilege to welcome him to Malta, it was clear that he was genuinely glad to be back. He has a heavy schedule and even if until the last moment there were other issues and meetings that could have easily kept him away from the Malta meeting, he chose to be among us.

As Commissioner responsible for Enterprises and Industry, Mr Verheugen is also responsible for tourism. It was very reassuring for me to follow his keynote speech at the European Tourism Forum on Thursday morning in which he launched a renewed EU tourism policy.

It is in our interest that tourism gains in profile and becomes a priority area in the EU. Of all the EU states, Malta depends most heavily on this industry and so, more than any other state, we have an interest to ensure that EU rules in whatever shape and guise do not impact negatively on tourism, and that the EU recognises tourism as one of the key pillars through which it can achieve growth and employment, as envisaged in the Lisbon Strategy.

Malta lobbied over the past months to host the European Tourism Forum precisely to be able to push this message home. Before the conference started on Thursday, I had a working breakfast with Mr Verheugen where we discussed how the EU can become a pro-active force for the further development of tourism all across Europe. He informed me that he intended to use his keynote speech to announce ten principles that will lead to just that and serve as the basis of a renewed European tourism policy.

Later that morning Mr Verheugen indicated those principles as follows:

The European Union will not propose unnecessary regulation. It will not create specific financial instruments but will take advantage of all the possibilities offered by the existing ones. Moreover the EU will not seek to impose standards when those can be elaborated through voluntary self-regulation.

Another important principle is to cut red tape and modernise existing regulation. The Commission will co-ordinate the Community actions affecting tourism. The Union will actively promote the competitiveness and sustainable development of European tourism. The Union will continue to support actions promoting Europe as a tourist destination.

Together we will explore ways to promote emerging forms of tourism. We will continue collaborating and consulting with all the relevant stakeholders; and we will strengthen the visibility of the importance of the European tourism industry.

These ten principles provide an excellent framework for the formulation of a renewed European tourism policy and I am confident that the momentum registered this week in Malta will be sustained in the coming weeks and months, not least in the coming year, as Austria and Finland take over the Presidency of the European Union already determined to give tourism the importance it clearly deserves.

Later that morning, Mr Verheugen joined an informal ministerial meeting held as part of the Malta forum. At that meeting, he went further and pointed out that the new and future EU member states must especially use every good practice developed in the EU, while taking advantage of the cohesion policy to develop their tourism.

The response from all ministers present for the meeting was highly positive and we all felt encouraged by the clear message that was being given to support the industry.

Apart from the plenary sessions and the informal ministerial meeting, the delegates at the European Tourism Forum set up three workshops and discussed three main topics: competitiveness, the better regulation of tourism issues, and sustainable development. Important points were raised and these should be the subject of further discussion.

It is encouraging to see that better regulation of the tourism sector was now topping the agenda of the 25 member states of the EU. Tourism is a driving force of economic growth and employment which cannot be achieved without a regulatory environment that allows business to thrive. Better regulation entails consolidation of current legislation; a new approach at standardisation that allows for self regulation rather than trying to impose standards in a centralised manner; understanding that regulation should only be provided where necessary, as well as assessing the impact of regulations - current and proposed.

The aim of this exercise should be to reduce costs and the administrative burden; the rapid changes in the tourism industry need to be reflected in a timely manner in existing legislation. In particular, the workshop that met to discuss competitiveness emphasised that we need to encourage competitiveness and facilitate the work of SMEs which are the backbone of the tourism industry throughout Europe.

Another workshop discussed sustainable development. A balance must be found between certification and high quality tourism, between development and the environment. Sustainable tourism concerns the future of humanity.

Another key issue addressed by the forum was competitiveness. That included a discussion on the growing importance of information, communication technology for information diffusion and booking.

Within an enlarged European Union there is scope to encourage greater mobility, not least through the recognition of qualifications. Moreover there is more scope for professional training since lack of trained staff, lack of qualifications and skills lead to reduced competitiveness.

More competitiveness leads to increasing employment and the provision of better jobs, recognition of small businesses' needs and the encouragement of fair competition among all operators.

A clear characteristic of the way the EU is working is powerful networking leading to an improvement of services and quality.

Tourism represents roughly five per cent of the EU's total employment and GDP and 30 per cent of total external trade in services. Together with employment and GDP in other related sectors such as transport or distributive trade, it accounts for 20 million jobs and roughly 12 per cent of GDP. In structural terms SMEs play a vital role as the tourism sector is largely an SME-dominated sector with over 99 per cent of firms employing fewer than 250 individuals. This makes the tourism sector an important driver of development.

The key message resulting from the Malta forum is that we should all strive towards a renewed tourism policy which will enhance the economic, social and cultural development of all 25 EU states.

While I again thank the British presidency of the EU, the Vice President and Commissioner responsible for Enterprises and Industry Günter Verheugen, ministers and delegates for their participation and hard work which made this forum such a success, my ardent wish, as I had occasion to emphasise when I was making my concluding remarks at the end of the forum, is that the momentum registered in Malta will now be maintained and strengthened during the forthcoming Presidency of Austria and that of Finland since next year could well be a crucial one in the formulation of a renewed tourism policy.

Cyprus will be hosting the next forum which will be held in October 2006. It would be very encouraging to see what progress will be registered until then.

Going for growth and employment will mean giving tourism the due weight and priority it deserves not only within the individual member states but also throughout the European Union as a whole.

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