The Presidency Conclusions of the Spring 2004 European Council delivered a message of determination and confidence which reinforced the validity and relevance of the Lisbon process. We have a consensus on the “road map”. The issue today is to improve “navigation”, to improve the decision making process and the effective delivery of the reforms.
Convincing the people of Europe that all European citizens will be better off thanks to these reforms is absolutely key. The success of Ireland was largely due to the fact that the Irish citizens were rightly convinced that this road map would improve their own situation. Moving to the second topic of my speech, i.e.