We, the political family of the European People´s Party, have to make sure that the right legal framework for SMEs is put in place. We will further reduce red tape and bureaucracy in order to unleash the capacity of our businesses. Especially young entrepreneurs have to be encouraged and enabled in order to successfully start up their own companies.
Sustainable investment differs starkly from irresponsible deficit spending at the cost of the next generation. The debts of today are the taxes of tomorrow. Debt consolidation efforts must be a priority for a strong European economy. The tax and contribution ratio is generally high in Europe.
Therefore the focus must be based on the mechanisms of a sustainable social market economy and a healthy euro. New growth will only be possible through higher productivity and better education for the next generation. Thus we encourage the Member States to explore ways to better coordinate between their education systems and the labour markets' needs. Dual vocational education and training are successfully implemented in some EU countries to fight youth unemployment.
The key to tackling youth unemployment is to enable our enterprises to create new and sustainablejobs and to ensure that our young people are fit for the labour market. We also need betterinvestment in research and innovation, as those will be the decisive, competitive fields otomorrow’s global economy. Europe's competitiveness also faces challenges from demographic developments. This puts heavyburdens on our social systems and will in the long run endanger the European model of the sociamarket economy. The EPP encourages the Member States to take ambitious and sustainablemeasures enabling young people to combine their family and work life and support their families intheir needs. We, the leaders of the EPP member parties, emphasise our belief that our values hold true when asmart, sustainable and inclusive policy approach is implemented for the well‐being of the citizens.
The EPP Manifesto, also adopted at the 2012 EPP Congress in Bucharest, outlines the basic principles of the Party summarising who we are, what our values are, what challenges are we facing and what vision we have for the future. The Manifesto was developed in parallel to the EPP Platform document within the EPP Working Group 1 for “European Policy”.
The Party Platform was developed in EPP Working Group 1 for “European Policy” chaired by EPP President Wilfried MARTENS ?and EPP Vice President Peter HINTZE. The Working Group consists of delegates of EPP member parties who prepared and worked?on this document for more than two years and received input?from the drafting committee as well as senior and young experts. The document was adopted at the 2012 EPP Congress in Bucharest, thus replacing the Basic Programme of Athens from 1992.