EU leaders stress need for new economic strategy (Extra)

Jan 8, 2010, 16:16 GMT

Madrid - Top European Union leaders on Friday described a new economic strategy as vital for the future of a union confronting the challenges of globalization.

EU President Herman Van Rompuy, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso stressed the importance of far-reaching economic changes at a joint press conference while inaugurating the Spanish EU presidency in Madrid.

Van Rompuy said the EU's 'first objective' was to 'secure full recovery' from the financial crisis.

The union needs to 'press ahead with structural changes,' because it needed more growth to 'finance, on a lasting and sound basis, our social model, to preserve what I call the European way of life.'

Van Rompuy described the EU as having too little 'research and development, insufficient use of talents' and 'bottlenecks (such as) insufficient mobility, too little risk capital, problems in the labour market.'

The new economic strategy will be discussed at a February summit and could be adopted in June, Van Rompuy said, describing it as a 'matter of survival.'

Zapatero said 'economic unity' was the 'principal question' following the entry into force of the EU's Lisbon Treaty on December 1.

Barroso described the EU as being 'at an essential moment of globalization in which Europe must work in a more articulated and ambitious way.'