Promoting quality and sustainable tourism in the EU

A few days ago, Joseph Muscat, member of the European Parliament, expressed his opinion on these pages that the European Commission was not doing enough for the EU tourism industry. I have a different view - tourism is a strategically important sector for the EU economy and, as such, it is a clear priority within the renewed Lisbon Growth and Jobs Strategy. It cannot be otherwise if we want to be serious about our goal to create more employment in the EU - tourism represents more than 10 per cent of the EU's GDP and employment and has further significant growth potential.

In March this year, the European Commission presented a clear policy framework for tourism entitled A Renewed EU Tourism Policy: Towards A Stronger Partnership For European Tourism. The thrust of our policy is to create a momentum to support tourism in the EU by 1) integrating the challenges faced by the tourism industry in our own policies in a way similar to how we already do this with SMEs and 2) getting all stakeholders, including the member states' authorities, to recognise the value of the tourism industry for their economies.

A number of EU policies already actively contribute to the development of tourism, starting with rural development or fisheries. The tourism industry, composed essentially of small enterprises, will also be a prime beneficiary of our better regulation agenda - an ambitious plan to cut red tape, simplify rules and by insisting upon the availability of impact assessments to ensure that decisions are taken in full knowledge of the consequences. In this framework, we have launched a review of the legislation governing consumer policy including, for instance, the directives on package travel and time-sharing.

The upcoming programming period for the EU structural and cohesion funds will be clearly focused on delivering more growth and jobs to our citizens mainly through support to SMEs. As one of the economic branches with the highest presence of SMEs, tourism is set to benefit from this reorientation of our financial instruments.

As a second line of action, the Commission is trying to draw the attention of the member states to specific problems of the tourism sector and to actively encourage them to cooperate by highlighting solutions. Examples of such projects are the organisation of the Tourism Forum, which every year brings together about 300 private and public stakeholders, the work of the member states' advisory committee on tourism or the expert group for sustainability of tourism.

Finally, promoting the visibility of European tourism is, as underlined by Mr Muscat, another important goal of our renewed policy. To contribute to the commercial marketing of Europe as a set of attractive destinations, the Commission financed the creation of the European Tourist Destinations Portal, also launched in March 2006 and accessible at www.visiteurope.com. I believe that offering a single entry point on the internet for tourists from the US, Canada or Brazil who want to visit Europe makes perfect sense.

In addition, the Commission is starting a "destinations of excellence" European annual awards project, which will help to promote outstanding destinations in the different EU member states. The first year's theme of this project will be Best Emerging Rural Destinations and I am confident that some of the excellent Maltese destinations will participate in this competition.

As another example of our contribution to promoting quality and sustainable tourism in the EU, we have expanded the European eco label to cover tourist accommodations and campsites.

I believe these examples of concrete actions, together with our commitment to a broad-based strategy towards tourism, demonstrate that we care about our tourism industry. Indeed, if the EU had more competences and larger financial means, even more could be done for this important part of our economy. But the reality is different.

Supporting tourism is predominantly a responsibility for member states. This is laid down in the EU treaties and neither Mr Muscat nor I are in the position to change this. In the absence of a clear mandate for a policy action at EU level, such as would have been given in the European Constitution, we have to primarily rely on our broad range of economic policies and on promoting cooperation among stakeholders. In doing this, we remain open to good ideas and I am particularly keen on maintaining a constructive cooperation with the European Parliament on these issues.

In conclusion, given the importance of this subject, I fully share Mr Muscat's view that it was not the best idea that a debate on such important issues took place at 11 in the evening in the European Parliament with the presence of only a handful of MEPs. Tourism deserves better.

The author is vice president of the European Commission responsible for enterprise and industry.