Manchester informal meeting wraps up with consensus
Six areas, including research and innovation, were prioritised as key to Europe's competitiveness at the informal conference for industry ministers of Europe, and attended by three European Commissioners, in Manchester on 19 and 20 February. Programmes for innovation and research, bridging the skills gap, developing e-commerce and IT as well as sustainable development, a framework for entrepreneurship at European level, better functioning markets and regulations and finally access to risk capital and financial markets were all highlighted as fundamental areas to develop if Europe is to attain its goal of being the most competitive region in the world. In addition to the 11 ministers, Erkki Liikanen, Philippe Busquin and Frits Bolkestein, Commissioners for Enterprise and information society, research and internal market respectively, attended the meeting. Five representatives of the private sector also gave their feedback on the requirements for Europe's competitiveness. They emphasised that simplicity of regulations was essential and that alternatives to legislation, such as self-regulation, should be encouraged. One particularly emphasised the need to invest in, and provide further general information on, biotechnology. Lars Rekke, the Swedish state secretary who chaired the meeting, claimed that the meeting had been very productive. 'When I opened the meeting this morning my goal was to, by the end of the day, formulate a Manchester vision to work on, during 2001. And this is what we have achieved,' he said. The details of the discussions of the meeting will be handed to Swedish Prime minister Goran Persson as part of the preparations for the March Stockholm summit.
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Sweden