BIRMINGHAM, England (AFP) - Europe must show a "determined, unwavering pursuit of economic reform" or risk endangering its status as a "global economic leader", EU trade commissioner-designate Peter Mandelson warned.
"I believe the incoming (European) Commission must have one guiding light -- to be a strong, reforming Commission," Mandelson told the annual conference of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) in Britain's second city, Birmingham.
Mandelson told Britain's business leaders there was one compelling cause for the Commission to advance that went to the heart of Europe's future and was the essential precondition for re-cementing public confidence in the 25-member European Union.
"This is the determined, unwavering pursuit of economic reform. Re-dynamising Europe's old economic structures so as to achieve more efficient markets, a faster rate of innovation, higher productivity and growth, and therefore higher levels of employment for Europe's citizens."
Fail to reform, Mandelson said, and the alternative was the prospect of "Europe's relative economic decline in the world".
A former trade and industry minister for Britain's ruling Labour government, Mandelson said the world's economic power balance was changing at "breathtaking speed", making reference to the "dramatic rise of China and India" and the "potential of Brazil and South Africa".
Mandelson's speech came just days after Dutch former prime minister Wim Kok said there had been "inadequate" progress on the Lisbon Strategy, a grand plan to make the EU the world's most dynamic economy by 2010, due to "a lack of commitment and political will".
Kok, whose nation holds the rotating EU presidency, gave an update to the strategy to EU leaders attending a summit in Brussels last Friday.
Mandelson described Kok's conclusions as "pretty stark" and urged each EU member state to make the Lisbon Strategy "an explicit feature of their domestic reform agendas".
He called for a new European convergence -- "British-style economic openness and market flexibility with continental-style investment in social and economic infrastructure, scientific research and development, and public services.
"That's the modern European model we should be espousing -- economic dynamism with greater social cohesion and social justice, as we see best exemplified in such European countries as Finland, Sweden and Denmark."
11/08/2004 - 12:42 GMT - AFP