Speech: Remarks by President Juncker at the joint press briefing with European Council President Tusk ahead of the G7 Summit
Mr President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Buongiorno,
As you are, I am happy to be here in Taormina for this 43rd G7 Summit, the sixth in fact taking place in Italy. And I would like to thank Prime Minister Gentiloni for his hospitality and wish him all possible luck to have a successful Italian Presidency of the G7.
We will meet in a few moments from now - and there are four new leaders around the table. So Donald and myself, we are the only stable elements on the international landscape. We are veterans, but we are not old. And so it will be very interesting to know these new colleagues in a better way, although we have seen some of them yesterday and the days before.
We will stand up here - as we are always doing - for our shared values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights. We do believe as Europeans in open societies and we are always seeking multilateral solutions. We want to build bridges, not walls.
But we have to understand those - in Europe and elsewhere - who do not see how globalisation works for them. I mean those 45% of Europeans who do think that globalisation is a threat and not an opportunity. We do think that it is an opportunity if dealt with in a proper way. We have to put fairness at the heart of everything the G7 and our partners do.
That is mainly related to trade and to all trade-issues. Around a third of our national income comes from trade with the rest of the world. It supports 1 in 7 jobs in the European Union and for every EUR 1 billion we get in exports, we create 14,000 extra jobs.
The EU's GDP is expected to grow by 1.9% this year and next year. All our Member States - the 28, 27 plus 1 - are expected to grow. With 233 million people having a job in Europe, more people are working than ever before. And public finances are improving. We had an average deficit level of 6.1% in 2010/2011; we are down now to between 1.2% and 1.6%. So the overall situation is improving.
During the first G7 we had in Bavaria and the next one last year in Japan - this time we do not have to discuss Greece in the same way we had to discuss Greece previously. Greece is on track. Greece is doing well and I want to pay tribute to the courage and the dignity of the Greek people. Greece is a great nation and we have to respect that nation in the way I am saying.
Mr Tusk and myself, we will have a meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister later today in order to advance our common trade agenda.
Thanks. Grazie. Mille grazie.
SPEECH/17/1458