site.btaEuropean Parliament VP: We Need to Start Planning if We Are to Build Strong Europe

We need to start planning if we want to build a strong Europe and if we want to make sure that all countries in the EU will develop in the future, European Parliament Vice President Victor Negrescu said on Monday at the Green Transition Forum 5.0: Competitiveness and Innovation in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in Sofia.

This is the fifth edition of the forum dedicated to green innovation and sustainability, which runs until 20 June. The organizers are the Green Transition Forum and Dir.bg. BTA is a media partner.

“The European economic and social model is in crisis because we pay too much attention to unforeseen situations we find ourselves in at the moment, and we forget to plan, we just react. So we need to calm down a little bit and plan,” said Negrescu.

He said that it was important for the Commission to allocate at least 20% in the new financial framework for education, adding that currently we have 12%, which is not enough. 

We need to focus more on people. In today's world, where everyone is thinking about when the next crisis will be, when wars are raging around us, we need to realize that our world will be a better place to live in for future generations, and for this we need to invest more in training and in skills, he said.

Lukas Mandl, Member of the European Parliament, commented on the need to improve Europe's competitiveness and the Commission's Omnibus package of measures to simplify the EU business environment. 

The EC is now focusing its efforts on competitiveness, this is extremely important because we have a problem, Mandl said. In recent years, since the pandemic, 0.5% has been the average GDP growth in Europe. In China it is 12 times more. We need to think about competition, he further said.