levels, higher intellectual content and therefore we can be more competitive in pay. >> look around and say what industries are we world leaders and, we are still leaders in i.t. and media and high skilled manufacturing like airplanes although we are starting to make airplanes in mexico and we are worldly person financial services. ..

if we have the national will to implement it and even if we did it would take a long, long slow process. i don't see any alternative. i don't think closing our borders is an alternative. i don't think mandating wages that are uncompetitive is a solution. i don't have a better idea. >> do you have a better idea -- >> where you started which is with the foreign direct investment and what we should be doing to try to really attract further direct investments. foreign-owned companies already provide that 5 million jobs in the u.s., and they tend to -- your story aside they tend to be fairly high jobs, relatively high-paying jobs. they tend to be weighted towards the manufacturing sector, and so to the extent that we haven't really on the national scale at least at the federal government level, come up with a systematic

way of trying to promote ourselves as a destination and there are certainly a lot of reasons beyond the cost of labor companies look to invest here and that has to do with education level, it has to do with putting the challenges aside some of the top educational institutions in the world. we have a legal system that protect investor rights, we have intellectual property rights that are very robust so there are other reasons companies look to invest and that's something we are trying to encourage around the world. the title of this is dillinger and opportunities and i think you leave out some of the challenges very well. one of the great opportunities and we don't know what the scale or the scope will be with shale

gas and what we might see in the coming decades with abundant cost of energy supplies that could have a dramatic impact on what we might see in terms of being able to proceed with a manufacturing growth in manufacturing continuation of employment here that is not independent on the innovation or high-tech industries which we should very much be supporting. that's something to keep an eye on. >> i'm glad you mentioned energy because i was getting very depressed talking about the middle class i think it is the single biggest issue in america today. will be part of the energy solution. >> i wish that i had included

that because heidi is completely right. it is a great thing that is happening in terms of the availability in the natural gas where as you know it isn't a well liked commodity where it's produced which means if you have as much of it as we have at the moment, the price is low relative to the cost of oil and therefore we can attract energy intensive manufacturing in north dakota and eastern ohio to wherever to take advantage of it and that is a great thing and i don't want to minimize it, but -- and i don't know the calculation exactly what you have to say a company savings this much how can it afford to pay its workers and be competitive globally if you have to compete against that factory they may have high your costs of energy so i think it's a great thing and in terms of how far it

takes us i think realistically manufacturing is going to decline as a share of our economy just as our agriculture has declined as a share of our economy we are still will world's largest exporter i believe, but to get a number of jobs to stop declining and to start going up in a more sustainable way. >> i agree. >> i'm going to make a positive energy point and then ask questions. the point is when it comes to the actual destruction those are high paying jobs because we can't outsource them and so i think that is one area you are seeing the wages actually going up. having said that, do you worry that this is going to become a really divisive issue in your party because there is a leaning in the democratic party that is pretty and i fossil fuel and is not greeting the discovery of these new sources of fossil fuels, natural gas not so bad

but some of the techniques for extracting it like fracking are not in environmentalists favorite thing so will you we start seeing some de tension and the people welcoming this as a source of jobs and economic growth and the environmental wing of the party that says no we want to get away from fossil fuel. >> i don't have a particular insight. your guess is as good as mine. i would say a couple things. first the environmentalists and putting my boss mayor bloomberg have succeeded i think and are succeeding in really reducing the role in our energy picture and i and that is the fossil fuel they see as the most worrisome from the environmental point of view than you get to oil which has some sort of issues but gas is much more, putting aside extraction it does involve some release of co2 and what not in the atmosphere and it's much more environmentally

friendly than other fossil fuel so as you said to focus on the extraction side of it i guess i would say my sense is the country including most democrats are more focused on our economic problems and environmental problems we talk about all that but there is no question, and i am certainly a global warming were year. >> do you believe it's happened? >> i don't know how you can't? >> just guessing. [applause] sandy is like okay we have that but there's every other piece of evidence just so overwhelming, you know. you have to look at the numbers and take them as members. whether its temperature or the sea level or any of that stuff so we can't not believe it. but i do think -- i don't think anybody believes we are not having global warming. >> there are a few people that still say that.

>> these are balances and the environmental damage will have no jobs you can just let everybody run wild and be under water unable to breathe and i think right now we are in a pretty good balance in terms of people's awareness and concern about the climate issues but still allowing these sources of energy to go forward with an employment at 9.7% and all these economics we've talked about all i do believe that with a lot of controls and what ever that our new energy sources are going to continue to be developed and that is a good thing. >> i'm going to ask heidi to make a final comment on the entire matter and throw it open to everybody years of get your questions ready. succumb heidi, the environment clearly a global challenge, clearly a part of the foreign policy. how does it fit into the economic statecraft? >> it fits into a lot of different things the state

department is working on. what we as a relatively new office of seven months and only a few people have been working on are much more than the sort of geographic priorities that the secretary has highlighted, so i probably wouldn't be the best person to speak to this department with a whole host of environmental issues. a lot more time on the year autozone and the relationship and then there's a little bit of a list from the economic analysis perspective that we tend to spend most of our time on. >> all of the subjects but maybe everybody else would like a chance to do that, too. questions? i think there is a microphone here. is there another mic? going once -- if people don't have questions i will ask them. okay.

>> the council of the land that. one of the things that we observed both in the atlanta environment and looking at the global companies that has to do with our competitive edge advantage in collaboration that the work that many companies are doing with government, ngos like care, world wildlife fund's, etc., and with business that triangle was very successful or appears to be. i would like some comments on is this one of the elements of our competitiveness that we ought to feature and encourage especially from the point of view of the state department in the way that we are trying to position hour of the world effectively? >> one of the things we are trying to do is to deepen the partnerships that we have with the chamber of commerce with

companies and groups of companies in the u.s.. we tend to hear from many companies that other governments work much, much closely in terms of how they provide financing packages if you are looking at an infrastructure in the country you tend to have other companies show up with great big package deals of where their governments are providing a feasibility studies and all sorts of other things, so we have very good intentions and we are making strides, but i think we need to do a lot more. so i'm glad you have a good positive experience. we want to be doing a lot more of that. >> okay. steve, do you have anything to add to that? >> i will go quickly. my name is anna from the

dallas-fort worth world affairs council. i teach seniors, so i have been facebooking for the conference and the ask questions and i answer back and i've already scanned my notes. the point is they want to know for this -- right now because they are on line with the -- should they be optimistic? they're very scared, the class of 2013. what can i pass on to them about economic competitiveness and they should be optimistic or worried? >> great question from the seniors. okay, steve. slingbox >> notwithstanding everything i said before -- [laughter] i'm actually optimistic. i'm optimistic because heidi ticked off a number of these before in a slightly different context. we have the most flexible economy in the world. we have this incredibly diverse labor force and a diverse group of people in this country that come here because the opportunity. there aren't that many people

that leave america to go all these other places that we worry about being more competitive than we are the there's a long line of people that still want to come here. immigration is a big issue in this campaign, and i am in new york which has an enormous immigrant population, and i can't even imagine what the city would be like without it in terms of the vibrancy and the excitement that we feel when we walk the streets of new york. so, you know, we have a long history of finding our way through these kinds of challenges and problems. and i believe that as long as we -- as long as we stick to our basic principles, and i do think we need to make some progress here in washington might do think that the government has reached a level of this functionality that is high even by government standards. >> we love numbers. >> some incredible amount of lightning strikes when the s. con. res. 70 leaves in another few weeks it will have passed fewer than half as many of the

laws as any other congress in modern history. now you may say -- some people would say that is great. but i don't think so. i think we have a lot of problems and conagra's is paid to solve them and so i do think washington has improved its success rate but beyond that, we have a lot of advantages in this country so there are reasons. >> the dallas-fort worth seniors i would like you to answer also heidi what should they be studying? >> i think a lot of people talk about the science technology. >> engineering. >> engineering and math. right. [laughter] i do think -- i am all for studying all these interesting things, but i do think that having those kinds of skills --

the countries we worry about competing with us a lot of their focus is on those things that actually have real world usefulness in the economy, and germany for a long time i spent a reasonable amount of time in germany they've emphasized engineering and technical backgrounds and certainly china is doing it and as i said i'm also with historians and even economists. [laughter] but i do think that having a strong base of people with those kind of skills would be a great thing. >> i think the most important point is education matters a lot. if you look at the unemployment break down in the u.s. right now it is skewed very much to words high school graduates are sort of a range of numbers but i think it's around 13, 14%.

and as you get up past high school graduate, college graduate advanced degree it drops precipitously in the there is a gap we have right now in the country where there are unfilled jobs that are highly technical and required a degree of education that we are not really pushing people to get at this point. so, you know, the education matters a lot. i agree with the comments. my daughter is putting me under. [laughter] really i think looking ahead, skills and talent are going to drive this country forward across a wide range of different subject areas. >> similar to this i asked a senior facebook executive the high school senior subject question and he said statistics,

which my three kids are so sad that was his answer. okay, please. >> jack from michigan. this is a great. it's like watching without the screen. three-dimensional. i would like to go back to the issue of sequestration and jobs because if you look at the website let's say of senator levin he justifies the budget on the basis of the need for jobs. and that concerns me that we will not get to the kind of economy that you are saying we really have to get to it we are going to try to preserve jobs by building humvees in michigan. is there a way out of this conundrum? can we work our way over the next four years out of depending on an inflated defense budget for the jobs devotee? >> great question. >> i agree with you i guess on

the point any way in the sense that one of the things the government does not do among many the government does not do well is distinguish between different kinds of spending and what impact they have on the economy. they do not keep the books in any way that resembles the way companies keep their books and so they get lumped together in the spending and all spending is not alike. some spending helps the economy grow and i know at some point we are going to get this and i will mention now the infrastructure research and development which had been squeezed to smaller and smaller percentages of the federal budget, infrastructure has gone from 1.2% of gdp to 2% of gdp in the last few years as a percentage of government spending. it's been squeezed down and down and down by a bunch of things including tidal lands, government is one. i'm not a defense expert. i can't say what the right amount is but what i can say is the economics is the defense spending is not investment, it doesn't get to productivity in this country or investment in

this country. it's something we have to because we have to protect ourselves but nobody should confuse defense spending with the wave of the growing economy. that's not how you grow the economy. you do it for other reasons. as we get into this budget stuff and sequestration, if we could be more clear eyed in the long term economic prospects as well as creating some jobs in the short run. >> heidi, do you want to add anything to that? >> heidi isn't going to hear that issue. [laughter] >> i will put in an extra plug on the infrastructure front because i think, you know, in addition we have the challenges of the american society of civil and engineers in the 2009 report card of the u.s. infrastructure said we need about $2.2 trillion of investment in the next five years starting in 2009. the numbers are staggering in terms of actually funding

infrastructure it's not just a challenge for the u.s. is something that as you look around the world with the rising middle class and rising demand, rapid urbanization, rapid infrastructure demand and the past anything that federal budgets and local budgets are going to be able to support, so looking for creative ideas to do public-private partnerships or to be able to challenge large pools of capital into funding infrastructure is going to be one of the primary challenges over the next decade. >> already is a little past 2:00 and i can see lori looking at me with a sore about hawkish intensity. but i'm going to propose as everyone that is standing up, ask your questions, we will take all four of them and then i will give steve and heidi a final chance to do a sort of short this board of answers. so, please. >> thank you. i am james allen with this

brings world affairs council in colorado. one is health care which relates to the competitiveness in the world. i have a brief to ask you first and then a question. the mystery is if you read tiahrt read's book the healing of america it came out in 2010i believe and makes the observation as a percentage of the gross domestic product our health care runs 17, 18% of gdp. if you look in the western european countries or canada the health care cost as a cost of gdp it is more like seven or eight, 9%. you could say there's a 10% difference between the two figures or the comparison so the mystery or part of the question is why didn't the u.s. chamber of commerce or other business groups make more medicine about the fact that we are hurting ourselves from a competitive point of view to not have the more efficient cost savings cost-effective health care program in the country, and then

more pertinent question in terms of where we go from here with obamacare coming down the pike, and will we be able to under the new health care reform act to be able to foresee by broadening the base and having 44 million more people covered with health insurance we will be able to bring down the cost so that we don't have 17% or 18% of our gdp going towards health care. if you can comment on those were the latter is more important because it is more current. some excellent question. >> mardy jones and if you could comment on the regulatory issues it seems like to the regulatory framework it's safe to say they have changed dramatically. for example regulated by the states there was no state insurance department that ever figured out what was happening at aig. the structures haven't changed. it seems like they are

competitive. this has been pretty much a disaster. can you comment in terms of the regulatory environment and framework and the impact on competitiveness. >> okay. thank you. >> i'm with the alaska world affairs council. something that is great importance to us and it seems very clear is there's a lot of global opportunities and challenges. there's been a lot of abundance of resources and use the word abundance on purpose. but we don't hear a lot of talk going on in the national level on plans and opportunities to get vantage of some of those things, specifically with the sea and going into the arctic like our neighbors are doing so if you could address that that would be great. >> karen wilson from western massachusetts, world affairs council of western massachusetts. i work for companies that are finding it very difficult to manufacture products

competitively. in some cases the products landed from china is less than 50% of the cost of manufacturing here in the united states. what about the manipulation of the chinese currency? >> okay. that is a wide-ranging set of excellent questions. i'm going to let each of you choose which one you want to answer but please answer at least one come and try to keep your reply to a couple of minutes. i'm going to start with steve, and i can't resist reminding those of you that haven't been falling his book very closely that not too long ago he wrote a column and the first sentence was we need debt panels. >> i don't think this is the right group to tell. [laughter] >> i'm just saying. you wrote that. i have it with me. it's been a gay group was coming towards me that doesn't

encompass debt panels. i know heidi wants to talk about the chinese currency manipulation. [laughter] so, i will start with that. let me say one thing. health care we could spend a whole nother hour on. so let me say one thing. the point of the question you made about your up spending less percentage of gdp is correct for the gentleman back there. it's absolutely correct -- >> don't forget canada. >> and canada. she's from canada, that's why you see that. and there's a lot of reasons why and certainly a lot of problems with our health care system. but since coming and i was going to say this, remember something in every story that you read about why the health care is better than ours. every european country that i know more about the ration health care. they make decisions about how much health care a person

particularly the elderly can have based on and in britain it is a very formulaic calculation of the quality of life per year was something like that and how many you get for a procedure and what quality-of-life you get by doing at and we haven't been willing to do that. it is a tough issue but right now we have a medicare system which a quarter of what we spend goes to people in their last year of life, and we all know that a lot of that is not a great use of resources and those are hard questions to which i am not here to tell you that it's easy, but it is a non-trivial part of why we have that gap in the gdp. the other one coming and i will do both of these quickly come on the regulatory framework you are absolutely right, dodd-frank absolutely nothing to reform the regulatory structure of all of the bank regulatory agencies in the office of thrift supervision

and you still have the same password on the fed to control currency and the states and the insurance situation as we described this terrible, and again you have to point your finger right here and say it's not on the table now but with all of the things going on in washington getting to that issue again it isn't going to happen and we just have to live with it. i will say one word on the chinese currency. there was a time when was clear i think they would say that it's less clear today for a variety of reasons. they certainly engaged in a lot of trade practices that are not ideal but it gets back to what we started in this conversation and when you will then naturally and others you have a trillion dollar deficit and if we want to try to address the trade situation with china in many ways we need to get our own economic house in order and become strong economically. >> the idea on the chinese

currency we do continue to support the move to the market base currency in china. it's something that's been very consistent to underscore what steve said. there are a lot of other issues out there that we continue to focus on the protection of intellectual property rights and procurement issues to try to ensure a free, fair, open playing field for u.s. companies. and at the same time will come chinese investment so we have a lot of other issues that are out there and it's certainly not off the priority list but there has been movement on the currency issue so we continue like i said to push for the market based currency. on the issue some of the earlier questions on the competitiveness the world economic forum

obviously puts out of the competitiveness report and i think the u.s. came in at number seven this past year. we came in at around 33 fer basic institutional infrastructure and education regulatory issues and that's something that is also reflective of what we hear the state department when we talk to companies that are looking at investing in the u.s.. we have obviously speaking for the purview of the state department they are limited things that we have direct influence on a number of the different domestic competitiveness issues, but one that cannot quite often and something that we have addressed significantly over the past couple of years is the issue because in order to have companies invest, you need to have people going back and forth coming and tourism is one of our

greatest drivers of job growth you have people coming from all over the world and we went from i think in brazil we use to take 140 days to process a visa for someone to come to new york and now it is down to two. so is something that we have worked very hard on certain elements on what were the red flags on the competitiveness front and we will be doing a lot more. >> i think we are probably going to have to leave it there and i want to make a final remark myself, which is maybe here at the dallas-fort worth seniors. the question about optimism this past hour has made me much more optimistic when i moderate to try to check out the hall and the audience to see how people are feeling, and i have to say that life to we struck by the intensity of the engagement today. it's lunchtime on friday and i know every single person in the

room was listening to every single word and you asked fabulous questions, and i think that the national groups and engaged citizens are something that has a green card holder happily living in new york really admire about your country and it's been a pleasure for me to be here with you at lunch time today and thank you to the great speakers. [applause]

>> it should be the year that we would begin to solve our debt through tax reform and entitlement reform. and i am proposing the birth of the fiscal cliff together in a manner that ensures 2013 is government comes to grips with a major problem that is facing us. >> i'm open to compromise. i am open to new ideas. i am committed to solving our fiscal challenges. but, oddly refused to accept any approach that isn't balanced. i am not going to ask students and seniors and middle class families to pave the entire year

deficit of people like me making over two injured $50,000 aren't asked to pay a dime more in taxes. last week german chancellor angela merkel and just members of the european parliament on solving the financial crisis. she talked about germany's continued support of the eurozone and warned against the u.k. leaving the european union. following the chancellor's remarks, she took questions from the european parliament party

leaders. >> ladies and gentlemen. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: colleagues i declare the conference meeting open to all members of the parliament, and i thank the group that allowed us to use the meeting room has a sore left chamber, and mrs. merkel also i hope. i welcome the chancellor at the federal republic of germany, angela merkel in our midst. [applause]

[speaking in native tongue] >> translator: she has been willing to come here and address the meeting, and in a moment i am going to give her the floor but i am going to make a few introductory remarks and then we will hear from the group leaders and those that have been put forward i think as the group. i would urge you to speak to the time agreed. the chancellor has other appointments and has to go to london after this for the further important meetings. chancellor merkel, you have seen that we are not sitting in reporter, we are sitting in a

mixed format, which is surprising to me because if i look to my left where the strongest applause came from when you came in the room. perhaps that gives us an indication of leader discussions but mrs. merkel is free to speak to us in this next format, this open format. this has been discussed for some time, this possible meeting. and it is going to be an address in a plenary and for technical reasons that wasn't possible today and that is why we are here. but i have the impression this will be something in terms of the atmosphere and later there will be a special counsel, and as the chancellor and mrs. merkel have agreed to take part in the midterm financial planning for the e.u. you know the european parliament is there and you know the content of the base plans, but you know the

budgetary developments and the background that is why i would inform you the decision of the parliament on the report in which the parliament's position was set off on the midterm planning was adopted with a majority of more than 500 votes across the parliamentary groups, and that's a large majority that demonstrates that the parliament has very strong support for these measures and i wanted to introduce this meeting by saying that if anyone wants europe to succeed, they have to be willing to compromise. and the parliament is willing to compromise. we set our starting positions through our negotiations, and we've negotiated all of those and have come to a fair compromise is.

obviously we are not -- we don't set our positions and say no otherwise we wouldn't be representing our people. we would be giving a veto to them. the european parliament is willing to compromise but it is also ready to fight. yes, you may applaud. i'm also glad that we are going to have discussions on the debate in december on the adaptation of the european union to current developments in the future but without further ado i would like to give the floor to the chancellor. >> president, distinguished members, ladies and gentlemen, i can speak to you today and this is the first opportunity since

the german e.u. presidency since 2007 to speak to you, and i would like to use this opportunity to give you my view of the situation on the union not necessarily about the midterm financing but in today's over november will be the anniversary of the opening up of the berlin wall the 23rd anniversary from europe to start in freedom in the opinion of the end of democracy in europe and we will never forget the fortunate development of country for the european union will never forget that we also owe

this to the striving for freedom eastern neighbors. [applause] we germans are aware of our responsibility for a good future in the union, and in this consciousness the german government is conducting policies, politics for our country but also europe but also to point out basic motive behind the european union and freedom which makes the life of freedom prosperity better now, the freedom of expression, the press, the believe and association this deserves to be defended all the time without freedom there is no rule of law and that freedom there is no diversity and no tolerance.

freedom is the basis for a united and decisive europe and in this creates a test which europe has to get through today. the power of freedom can help us bring us out of the crisis because the power of freedom is at my conviction and gives us the courage for change. this courage for change that we need to show now so that our union can maintain a self and international competition in the 21st century. in my troubles outside of the european union for example in asia in recent years i have gotten to know very many dynamic and ambitious countries. people look towards us, the european union.

but i'm often skeptical on will the european experiment stand up to the crisis? this question makes it clear the current difficult crisis dominates the perception of us, the european union also outside of europe so it is up to us now to change this fear of europe and to catch up in the global competition and the year it through hard work internally. therefore it isn't just a great honor that the european union was awarded the nobel prize for freedom this year. this important prize in the middle of the difficult crisis in europe since the passing of the treaties of rome is a very valuable political signal to the world and also to us, the europeans to the european

council and the european commission in oslo and also that some of my colleagues and putting myself have decided to take part in a ceremony we want to underline that the european union is us together the 500 million citizens and as we all know our europeans luckily we are united. the nobel prize for freedom means the we should never forget this and however great the challenges are and however difficult every day is causes and our decision to put it back into the center of things what is absolutely essential in the current crisis. it isn't the debt and the labor cost of the growth rates even

though those are important. the important thing is in the realization that our common currency is much more than just a currency. it is simple for the successful, peaceful and space unity of europe to the prosperity and progress and what that is all about at the moment is the fortune of the european unity should be preserved for our children so the noble prize to come at us all to create a better union, the europe of civility and strength and was right when the european parliament and i quote, we would either lose or we would all win. i believe we will win together,

and we will win together. that is my goal. and together, we can maintain our european model which includes an economic success and together we can consolidate its stronger than ever and with the power of freedom to have the courage to change the member states but also when it comes to developing the new instruments to deal with the crisis we haven't been satisfied with what is achieved, much left to be done and the trust in the european union as a whole needs to be one. so, so we mustn't stop halfway and i would like to make a promise to you to become a german will do everything so that the union can keep its

promise of freedom and prosperity in the future. the forces are increasing who think that we can lean back and we can't reform the economic. and that's wrong. instead of planning that step by step tall levels of the union and the strength of europe that can be obtained. freedom and the dynamism and prosperity can offer, and the assertion and the employment which the european union can create in the world and the speech of the state of the union on the 12th of september as said, and i quote, we must

complete the economic union, and indeed, we must find the right way now to stabilize the economic and monetary union so that we remove the basic errors and it and we must be courageous and ambitious and we mustn't hold back from the change in the economic treaties if that is necessary. this deepening process is essential and i see you, the european parliament and also the european commission as allies in this process. i want to say that very expressly. for the current crisis situation, there is no previous example the european union is a unique contract, therefore now we must do what europe is famous for quite rightly. we must be invented and find our own new solutions.

all the member states must carry out the reforms, structural adaptations and tough consolidation measures for more connectedness in order to fight the cause of the crisis, and i know that in some countries affected by the crisis, this particularly affects the citizens and requires a lot from them and i know the people there are suffering from the measures, but in this time i can give you some news showing success. the efforts haven't been in vain. it's been worth it. in ireland, portugal and spain labor costs have come down a lot and this is an important factor for the competitiveness and the deficits and the payments are going down. the reforms have more competitiveness and are flanked by the solidarity of europe, for

example through the new rescue mechanism, the esm both things belong together and both are equally important. sustainable consolidation and growth require each other. both must be pursued equally. i want to say that once again because at the moment, we seem to see things as opposites. we need new growth and employment on the basis of solid budgets. we have a responsible responsibility for future generations that we don't remove the margin. growth comes from an entrepreneurial activity. growth is nothing which we can define publicly. we must help people in europe who are active as entrepreneurs. this activity comes from freedom and the flexibility and here we must work, therefore the package

has measures with which a growth and employment can be strengthened and the member states. we have the fiscal growth and employment which is being flanked on to this. on the one hand, it is about the targeted spending of public funds but money isn't everything so we also have the preconditions for new growth above all and continuing the market the legal aspect must be carried out and that's important for the future and the parliament is committed to that. the medium term for the union which will be decided in the european council in two weeks. a fundamental precondition so we can create the impulse for

growth. this must be the goal in terms of growth and employment isn't enough to spend money. above all, it must be invested well in a targeted way and we must look at our policies in that light and look critically at the economic union to renew them. if we do those together that is the only way we will be successful in the long term and the only way we can have a strong and stable europe in 1992, 20 years ago the economic union was created. back then those who wanted to

have a true economic union didn't find the support and we have a monetary union with a come unitized policy and the union however was only constructed weekly, and this is -- we have to fight with the consequences of that, so the differences in competitiveness and we have to look at the developments and the labor costs they pointed that out but some of the member states it was possible for years to take on more debt without being penalized as they should have been under the stability this

makes very clear the problems that we are faced with today that are caused well before the current crisis broke out and they're different in each member state. and for the lack of competitiveness and the world wide financial and economic crisis in 2008, 2009 and the development here were exacerbated by the fall of the member states had stuck to their limits and agreed upon and carry out reforms to increase the competitiveness, the economic and monetary union even if the currency union had been weak we would have never grown into a crisis but the mixture of the violations became fateful for

year and therefore we need to learn the lesson of the crisis we must make sure it isn't repeated and make sure that europe comes out of the strength in the crisis. it means their errors made when the union was created was analyzed. we must renew the basis and in the member states we must create reliability by sticking to what we commit ourselves to. one example is that we as the heads of state in the government and predecessors for example agree that each member state in europe and the european union should devote 3% of its gdp to the recession development and the countries that were spent on 0.7% we have countries that spend 3.5%, but nobody really starts to what we agreed upon. from the four elements that are key for the future first of all

the renewed economic and monetary union needs more common financial market policies. it is based on the functioning of the robust financial markets and we must create the framework must define the framework of the financial markets better and harmonize the financial market regulation in the european level to make sure that the world wide level that it succeeds in the international financial markets and on top of that we must have an effective european supervisory mechanism for the european banks so that we can avoid systemic risks for our economic system. the decisions of the council recently have made it clear that the quality must go before speed. it's very important that the supervisory mechanism really works so the complex issues have to be cleared up because the bank is worthy of its name. second of the renewed economic

union needs more common fiscal policy for strengthening the budget discipline before it made progress with the fiscal pact. i'm happy that 11 member states required and most recently france and estonian and for example we can have the proper rights for the budgets for the agreed limits of the stability and impact and the renewed economic and monetary union needs more common economic policies. we could see it very clearly today we didn't have and we don't have economic policy coordination which is binding so there is no possibility and the union to have necessary

direction for strengthening competitiveness and to have a basis for growth. the commission doesn't -- in 1989 there is a report on setting up the economic and monetary union on the importance of both pillars of the economic monetary union and i quote him an economic monetary union without sufficient degree of economic policy convergence won't succeed, and it could be harmful to the community. that is what they said in 1989. it's shown how right the law was and it's shown developments in some member states and could bring the monetary union in

trouble. so we are still the beginning when it comes to the strengthening of the economic policy coordination so what can be done? in the european council in october we had a preliminary discussion and we agreed in those areas of the policy which are important for the functioning we need to take a look more exactly at an earlier stage because the competitiveness in the states become a problem for all. stronger economic policy coordination might be required in situations where the key areas of national sovereignty are touched upon thinking about sensitive areas of policy like the labour market policy or tax policy [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: we have to be cautious. the principal and the national space procedures must be

compared with. we need solutions which strike a sensible balance between new powers of the european level rights of intervention and the usual scope of the member states and other parliaments and their ability to act. the institutions must be strengthened to genuinely correct any an adequate or failing procedures and infringements in the rules, and we must have a new exchange between the european and national air force i would support a new arrangement, a new procedure of which the member states with the support of the parliament's about the reforms which are binding and which is possible to implement in conjunction with the european level and i can also imagine that we would have targeted incentives for a new financial the instruments of the year rose

-- eurozone with solidarity. she is -- and this is an idea for the future which would require a proper legal basis which we are going to decide on at the e.u. council in the context of these measures which will lead to a deepening and require a deepening of the e.u.. ..

that is the aim of all of our efforts and because that national debt crisis is lies at the heart of the crisis of confidence, we have to very carefully rebuild that confidence and renewing the economic union union will help european citizens, who are represented here in the european parliament and i put my support behind that. i understand the concerns about divisions and in e.u. of 27328 and a eurozone of 17, and i can counter that by saying that first of all, the economic and monetary union is essential for a good future of the european

union and secondly a renewed economic and monetary union will also be open for the participation of non-euro states. the euro countries are not a closed club. the emu has the aim of all countries taking part. and i would support a deeper emu which does not lead to and i would say it wouldn't lead to a two state europe, but a doubly powerful union. i am also firmly convinced of that the aim of europe sustainability and strength can only be achieved if the member states and the unions different bodies work together. ladies and gentlemen, i am also aware of concerns about nationalization of europe, about renationalization. i am convinced, if we do the right things, in other words if

we really learned the lessons of the crisis, we will achieve the very opposite. what we will see is that we will see in fast motion the national becoming more european and this is something that we must recognize as an opportunity and take that opportunity. if we are capable of understanding and grasping that we are stronger together than if we act as individual nations, then we will succeed. the national parliament will increasingly, like governments, show the responsibility for integration of the union. the president of the european council in a speech in brussels in february this year talked about national parliament as european institutions and the political sense. so we can summarize these ideas by saying that europe is --

that is all of us together in europe is a matter of internal policy or domestic policy. a stronger dialogue with the national parliaments, the members and the members of the european parliament is essential for a good future of the union. i am convinced that we can create a europe of stability and strength and to do that, we need more democratic legitimacy and control. it is decisive for me, this legitimization and control has to be set at a broad level, the level at which decisions are made and implemented is -- means if there is more sovereignty at the european level, the role of the european parliament must also be duly strengthened. and and a national sovereignty is affected or national constants as our affected national parliaments must also play an important role, a

decisive role. we should also discuss openly how decisions at the european level can be legitimated in the future if they only affect the eurozone. for example we have to think about whether to have members of parliament from non-euro countries -- sorry, only members of parliaments from the euro state should be allowed to vote and that is something we should consider carefully. >> stronger government to legitimization and control is a principle that must run through all measures that we take to deepen the economic and monetary union and it should lie at the heart of the union. only through legitimization of the parliaments can we have genuine will legitimization of these. president, ladies and gentlemen, since i'm here at the european parliament today i am thinking back to the last german

presidency in 2007. at that time, we were marking the 50th anniversary of the signature of the pko from that was reflected in the berlin declaration. the former president took the parliament that doctrine for the assembly. that signature in 2007 cannot be seen with hindsight as a breakthrough in the difficult negotiations that led to the treaty of lisbon. it was about deepening the european union overall and now it's about deepening the economic and monetary union in order to achieve a more stable and a stronger european union. in-app berlin declaration 2007, we said, our history exhorts us to protect the well-being of our citizens for future generations and for that we have to continue

to renew the political design of europe. i am convinced that it is only through that political design of the economic monetary union in a timely fashion that we can meet our responsibilities. i will come back to the beginning of my speech. i'm often asked the question, with the european experiment stand the test of the crisis? i can say that i know something about experiments and the european union is far from being definitely no longer an experiment. it is a union, which is now part of a very stable foundation and a stable structure. we have to have our parameters, which we can justify, which remains stable and strong and as a politician i would say, we are certainly going to continue that

successful recipe of the european union. it's about the freedom of our citizens and it allows us to be creative as europeans, and to be courageous. united and decisively are stronger. united and decisive, we are able to take our economic model, our social model and defended around the world. we can spread our model of peace, freedom and well-being around the world. nothing less than that should be our collective intention. i believe strongly in our collective european future. thank you. [applause] [applause]

[applause] >> mrs. merkel opening the debate first of all the chairman of the bpp group -- for seven minutes. >> thank you. >> translator: presidency of the parliament come parliament come mr. schulz, chancellor, it's a pleasure and an honor to have you amongst us madam chairman swear. a decisive moment for europe. for 60 years we have had peace and prosperity and noble peace

according to the european union as you rightly said. nonetheless, we are at a crossroads. either we can relaunch europe based on peace, prosperity and competitiveness or alternatively they are going to find ourselves at an impasse. the debate among the financial framework reflects the choice that we have to make. in the epp, this isn't just a budgetary issue. we feel that we need to go further than this. the question is how we can support this project which guarantees our prosperity and our future and primarily supports future generations. we are convinced that the european budget is indispensable if we are to get out of this crisis. wiens who invest in europe and let me remind you that 95% of the european budget is devoted to investment, investment which not only benefits the member

states but also, thanks to the leverage effect, mobilizes other financing, and that is something that only the european budgets can do. so, i don't really understand therefore counsels position, and must admit, which on the one hand supports our strategy of europe 2020 strategy, but then tries to. we need to be brave. we need to be consistent. that means that we need to budget that reflects our ambitions. obviously adopted to the difficult times we are going through. we need investment in development and also in innovation, which are the factors for growth and diversity which leads to employment in europe. we have to follow this story. we are convinced madam chancellor that we have a debate and we look to you for this on

own resources. on resources or something we need to guarantee the european budget and to ensure the -- as well as to relieve national budgets. we are being told that we need new fiscal capacity to improve the competitiveness of europe. that is true. some councils feel that by reducing the european budget, they will be able to create a new mini-budget but what does that mean? i don't know. i don't understand. if we can't finance our main budget, how can we finance the second budget? good common sense means that this is not easy to understand at all, so i would ask european parliament to take this to the court of justice so that a ruling would be given that would make it easy to understand. dear colleagues we have to reinforce our economic union and we have an answer to that perk which implement the legislation that art exists, this sixpack needs to be applied and fully

applied. the four pack has to be applied and the single market also needs to be completed. we need more fiscal and social harmonization too. what we don't need our new institutions, and you said that and i would thank you, or indeed, a budget for the eurozone. are parliament, the european parliament is the parliament of the eurozone area. it is in this form that we carry out democratic debates which are responsible for the european central bank and it's wrong to say as some people do that the euro concerns only 17 countries. it concerns all of the member states. in closing i have to say too to all of those who talk to me in the parliaments of the eurozone, i will say that the commissioners, the directors, the judges, the ministers and the firschein nationality do say that this is the case but we don't need this.

this issue has been raised again and again at the moment. on the question of the british -- britain saying -- i'm not trying to stigmatize anybody but the alliance between the socialists and the conservatives is necessary and i'm wondering, and i would ask you whether it is necessary to bring together in the next counsel what is only one country if you look at the text, that wants to and plans to block everything. so could we perhaps save the money of the council meeting and ask all the account -- questions that should be dealt with beforehand? for the first time, national parliaments have forbid in any negotiations by governments but it's not something we can call progress. i.v. point is very clear. europe wants to compromise thanks to the method that we have, the community method rather than any currencies.

europe is based on values, solidarity and responsibly. we will only be successful if we stop having a national view of european policies. we have to stop coming out of european summits and talking to the national press and the successes that have been obtained. they were just national issues. we have to be brave enough to talk about european interests. madam chancellor thank you. you have that courage. sovereignty is our sovereignty today, it's european sovereignty even if only because 27 national sovereignties cannot solve the crisis individually considering the situation in the world. we want a european future, we want european defense and we want the european germany. we won 27 european states. we want a united europe. we want it integrated europe. we want a political europe.

that is truly in the interest of europe. ladies and gentlemen -- >> to you mrs. merkel, you talked about european history. you have an intensive experience of that in your own life, your own life shows how important the united and free europe is. we in the epp have trust in you that the european union and you will continue to shape the european union. thank you. [applause] >> translator: i gave you seven minutes after all. he fully supports mr. daul. the next speaker is mr. swope at us from the national democratic.

>> translator: i am glad that you have come, chancellor. i admire you personally. i'd meyer your commitment to europe, but i then have to ask myself about the national german policy for the e.u.. you know much better than i do chancellor that the german economic miracle was based on the good social conditions that we have had in germany. that you had in germany. there was the troika. we have seen the breakdown of social networks and increase you have seen what happened. you have been there recently and you said yes we have to come to an agreement with the troika but you know perfectly well that the troika actually breaks up the social networks that you need in

germany so your economic policies to work. chancellor, you talked about freedom. what about the millions of unemployed people's? what are they going to do with their freedom from work, freedom plum employment? their new statistics showing that unemployment is going up in europe. we can't just stay with our own focus contemplating that. those new statistics on unemployment. chancellor, you said we need to change the economic union but why so hesitant? why is it we are having to have a new banking union and what are you having to deal in this way with the banking union? that is not working. recapitalization is not working. look at spain. are we going to leave spain out in the cold in this crisis and not help them? i think we should help them.

you talked about the debt crisis madam chancellor. i would have to correct you. as you know, spain did not have public debt in the beginning. they had a debt that led to a banking crisis. this is where this process started and today we have tempered and interest rates -- different is drenched -- different interest rates. there is extreme discrepancy between interest rates that make it impossible for portugal and greece to get out of this crisis. why don't you look at what you're owned counsel, your own redemption from france and germany that have been recommended, why don't you take notice of that? chancellor, it is not about cooling debt at the community

level. it's about working on capital markets. it's about working together to reduce interest rates for those countries, which are beaten down by these differences in interest rates that are unacceptable at the current rate that we see on the market. you talked about jacques dolor. i think you're talking about a different european history. jacques dolor talked about how important investment is to keep europe together. you talked about growth and investing in education and research, but you know perfectly well that these are all in decline, greatly in decline because the countries are forced to adopt austerity measures. they can't afford to invest in research and investment and that is also unacceptable. chancellor, you talked about

jacques dolor and helmut kohl and that is your entitlement of course but i think there is a different angle to that aspect of history. windows in the future talk about this, are they going to have to think about the millions of unemployed, the increasing unemployment rates, social problems in your country and in others'? others? this is something that we must respond to and now i would briefly come to the budget. chancellor, yes, i am sure you have a much more reasonable approach to the budget than the u.k. or elsewhere but something, there's something very decisive here if you look at around 2020 or others, cutbacks there. unfortunately in the basis of their proposals, where we see that we need to -- and i would say growth and investment in the

european union budget shouldn't be cut back. they are part and foundation of the reasonable european project. finally chancellor, you remind his of that again today. you are a physicist and use experiments but if an experiment does not work surely you have to give up this experiment and try something else. when you see an extremity and austerity policy, it's not saving money. i'm talking about extreme austerity, you have to give up those experiments and move forward with growth, plenty of growth and investment and job creation because those unemployment people, we have to do something for them. there is youth unemployment as well which is something we cannot sit back and accept. thank you. [applause]

>> the liberal democrats group. 's the mrs. merkel chancellor, first of all thank you for your intervention. you did not repeat it this afternoon, but a few days ago you said that the crisis could be over in five years. i think that was what you said in the meeting with the city and i have to tell you by nature i'm an optimist. i have to tell you i have my doubts about it. and why? because all the measures being imposed today have no effect, have no effect at all if we don't tackle at the same time what is in my opinion the real origin of the crisis and the origin of the crisis, the real problem of the crisis is in my opinion political. it has an economic -- there are financial consequences but mainly it is a legal crisis

in the real origin of this crisis is in fact the absence of a state authority today behind europe, a state authority behind the single currency. may be a state can exist without the currency, but i don't think that currency can exist without the state. and let me prove this with a few figures. we have in the eurozone a debt of 90% today and we pay an average interest rate as we talked about, in italy and spain and they average in europe is 5%, with 90% of that. in the united states they have a debt of 103%, more than the eurozone. and they pay less than 2% interest rate. the world recordholder in the world are the japanese. they have 226% of debt.

the double of italy and they are paying today 1.5% interest rate, the lowest rate in the world. how is this possible? those are the highest debts. i think the explanation is very simple. behind the end there exists the real state, since it stayed in japan and behind the dollar there exists a budget of 24% of the gdp. and behind a euro there is nothing at all. even a budget of 1% is seen as too high by a lot of your colleagues and maybe what we can do mrs. merkel is you can mention these figures with and maybe with mr. cameron a good opportunity to mention these figures tonight. [applause] let's face the reality of the day and let's not think that with hard measures we can solve

the problem of the euro. the euro is unsustainable and big euro doesn't -- we don't create a real european states with all the building blocks, with all the ingredients that the americans have already put in place. i should say 200 years ago. and what does it mean? it means through european government, through european democracy, a real unity of budgets and real european treasury and finally don't forget, also the european bond market, a european bond market that is the only way to solve the problem that's mr. svoboda has mentioned, the two high interest rates today in the european union. that is the choice we have. and then finally, mr. president, you have to know i have enormous

respect for you as chancellor of germany. but what you have set on the gate of mr. mercia was for us unacceptable. the opinion of the parliament ladies and gentlemen is respectful and very clear, and what we expect is that the european parliament is treated in the same way as you will treat the germans on domestic matters. european democracy dear colleagues is as legitimate as germany's democracy. [applause] >> the next speaker for the green group and the free european alliance, rebecca harms. >> translator: thank you very much for coming to speak to us today madam chancellor. we remember you as the european head of government who got the

lisbon treaty going, so a discussion with you about the functioning of european democracy is interesting. i understood you to say that you wanted to send a message that nobody in germany is following the plan to split the european parliament. the suggestions coming from germany that i understood differently and i would like it to make it very clear to you that i can't imagine that in the future in the european parliament, when it comes to tough decisions of economic and the fiscal union. for example the polish colleagues would leave the room before the votes. i can't imagine that somebody who knows european history, is behind the idea of having a

european eurozone parliament. i can't imagine either that you are thinking of a eurozone budget when nobody knows where the money comes from. perhaps you could discuss that with mr. cameron. when it comes to european history, i think it's good that you have pointed out that freedom and democracy, as i know the eastern and southeastern parts of the european union, that the promise of a better life and justice has been an engine for the big movements we have seen in the eastern part of the european continent. when i look at the results of crisis politics, i can't see that the goal of justice has

been pursued appropriately. i think it is depressing that more and more people are worried about what their future looks like. greece is just one part, where you can see where one side of authority politic and lead to and you won't find anybody in this house who would say we are against saving what has been contentious in this house is the one-sided austerity policies. after 35 crisis summits, i have stopped counting how many times we have tried to agree with the council in brussels. the outcome of the most summits has been, it will get better now. it has gotten worse. we are in a downward spiral. the european union through one-sided policies in recent years has been driven apart.

and we have been told by the imf that this vicious circle is getting worse, which starts with austerity policies and leads to recession. that is getting worse. if portugal, spain, italy and other states will follow greece, that is something which you ought to note as an anna let akel -- analytical physicists. germany should get over this one-sided approach and how about a new debate about the other instruments which we need urgently, not to keep the euro stable but to keep the european union together. thank you for your attention. [applause] >> now for the european conserve

tests and reform, mr. callanan. [inaudible] [applause] >> translator: as the first british -- to speak in this debate and occasional reader, let me start by saying i hope that you are not getting too much of the -- and what people are saying to you today. i wish that more e.u. nations had the german economic discipline and enterprising spirit because if they did, i think the meeting here today would be under entirely different circumstances and i have sympathy for the taxpayers because they were never told 15 years ago that this major project would require them to make such large sacrifices to sustain the single currency. and i think if i were one of

those german taxpayers i think i would probably agree with your colleagues and oppose more german money being used to prop up the eurozone. incidentally i would also be quite frustrated that the group leaders of both parties are saying such completely different things to their parties. but if i was a german politician i think i would also be quite eager for fiscal responsibility onto some eurozone government. and i agree with you, the fiscal conservatism is in fact common sense and is another famous woman politician was reminded us, margaret thatcher, the problem with socialism is eventually run out of other people's money. [applause] if my money were used as a backstop for the euro, then i think i also would want to put in place measures to put in place to see that simply more borrowing and more spending could not take place after those

countries have been rescued. the problem chancellor, as i see it, is what we are seeing are the -- of athens and what happens when economic sovereignty is surrendered to a higher eurozone authority. it has shown that if we remove the ability to determine their own economic destiny family start the countdown to social unrest and we may be seeing the thing -- same thing starting in spain as well. even the greatest optimist can see that the european arrangement that you have talked about today and want to put in place will take years to implement. even germany i'm afraid doesn't have a kind the kind of money that would bias enough time for those to be implemented. already the banking union timetable has slipped. opening up to e.u. treaty would doubtless see many currency countries negotiating for their own interest. my own country i'm sure would want to see some returns back to member states. our country tried to push ahead with more political integration

but you have to be aware that this vision is not shared by everybody else in the european union. i don't believe listing listening instead of lecturing those are different point to be where we would find a way forward. however ultimately the way i see it is that germany is still facing the same fundamental choices that at face two years ago. either you find the so-called big bazooka or use what other analogy like or allow those countries suffering under the shackles of an overvalued currency to break themselves free of those bonds. that could be delivered by restructuring the euro particularly in some of the peripheral areas or could mean introducing a stronger currency or coordination along the likes of the proposal of repressor marcus kobenan. my group does not want to see the hero fail however we do want to put this crisis behind us so that we can focus on what should be our real challenge here in europe. the challenge that is europe's

collective lack of global competitiveness. our share of world trade is slowly declining. in the end the root of all of our economic problems is her lack of strong growth in achieving that strong growth requires free market economic reform across the continent and i hope that you and germany will take the lead in starting. thank you chancellor for coming today. [applause] >> for the esd now, mr. farage. >> translator: good afternoon everybody. chancellor merkel. so you are off to downing street to negotiate the e.u. budget with david cameron and you do so against the backdrop of the court aborted yesterday, the 18th year in a row failing to get the account. you do so against the vote of the house and comments last week were a majority of mps were asking for reduction in the eve budget.

buyer we pumping 53 million pounds a day of british taxpayers money into this union? cameron is a very weak prime minister but i'm sure you will win that negotiation. the e.u. budget is not really the question. it's britain's place in this union that is the real question and increasingly britain looks like the square peg in a round hole. you see, we didn't join the eurozone. and that means that every time you have one of your summits in brussels, when the big debates are going on there is actually nothing for the british prime minister to say and in an infected produce anything, we are now seeing as they -- in the manger. the fact is chancellor yours leading the eurozone on a journey to much more deeply centralized and i think i'm democratic europe but nonetheless we simply can't join you on that journey. whether it is harmonization of

financial market regulations as you said today, whether it's the financial transaction tax, cameron is forced into the position time and time again where there's nothing he can say other than no. because the british public opinion and now the labour party appears to have discovered a bit of opposition, you cannot join these conversations. in brussels not from you but certainly around this chamber that increasing growing hostility through the establishment of this union are to blame for the anglo-saxon -- in london and new york for the faults of the eurozone. when it be better chancellor tonight if you went to downing street and said to mr. cameron, look this simply doesn't work any more. it really is time for the united kingdom to let the european union to have the -- he doesn't have the courage to say it himself but if you set it to him, it might have an impact. [laughter] all i am suggesting chancellor is that we have a simple

amicable divorce and we will all get on much better in the future. [applause] >> thank you. mrs. simmer. >> translator: please, colleagues let ms. zimmer. although i don't know whether i should say anything about david cameron. i really don't want to go that far. chancellor you touched on history number of times in your speech. i think that is a good thing. we have had today obama's victory and this anniversary of the october revolution and you have touched on other historical

events. [inaudible] >> ms. zimmer. >> translator: i really don't want the october revolution to cause such enthusiasm in the aisles. i mentioned it because you, like me, experience the winds of change in 1989 and one of the consequences was a system where there was social freedom, individual freedoms. that is something -- those two things could work together for any length of time and now the policy that has been adopted with greece and other countries in the periphery of europe, policy of austerity that forces people to lose property and forces them to lose their

jobs. economies are failing and they don't have any future and they are not going to succeed. austerity kills. sum some of the members from my group have gotten that message across to you before this meeting and i would refer you to the social rights committee of the council of europe. they have suggested a number of measures. there was a memorandum on greece, where they infringed the social chapter. that is one of the claims for the minimum wage, for those under 25. it's also one of the measures is also the extension of the time period for redundancies. there are further measures. you have talked about increasing working time. you have overseeing cutbacks in wages, and that is where i would urge you to put an end to these

policies because they have nothing to do -- though they don't lead to success. if you cut wages, it does not succeed and that is not to be used as an argument for these reforms. it's not reality. this is not going to increase competitiveness. what is the use of competitiveness when people are going to the wall? now, now other countries are going to have to bear the brunt of all these measures. recently, in the e.u., there was another word brought and of cohesion policy to replace solidarity and those policies were by the sense of adopting the budget and the financial framework. what we need is more money for

the cohesion policy, not less for all these tasks the european union has to do. there has to be money in the coffers to stop the federal government's log on the contribution of our 1% because it simply doesn't work. we need more policies and finally, before the president cuts me off, please consider this, and i would like to know the answer. weather in the council there is a single member state, who can say that with these cuts in development policy are a disgrace to the european union? if we are going to show her responsibility for that with what is happening in nonmember countries, food aid, other measures that are having to be

cut back to 7 billion euros. that is a disgrace for the european union and for us. >> translator: mrs. merkel, madam chancellor i would like to thank you for your visit. you have not forgotten, you shouldn't forget this building where we are is the home of european democracy. my question to you is this. the german constitutional court has determined that clause to be against the treaties, which is against the freedom of the parties and i would like to know

what the german government proposes to do about it? thank you. mrs. merkel, please. >> translator: i only informed the president of my time that is specific to me. i would like to begin by answering joseph daul and i think we have a lot in common. it's a question of the eurozone budget which has played a role for many of you. what i would like to see in all member states in the european union become members of the eurozone. that is what the monetary union was about. it was said that in 15 or 25 years time, not everybody would be members and we would ask different questions and now thinks it turned out differently. we have to live with it but it

also means we need a certain amount -- we want to achieve a certain degree of commitment for a nonstate because some member states have more freedom. does it have a common currency must be prepared to have a higher degree of commitment if others want to join. i can't force them. the common currency falls to pieces otherwise. we need commitment on one hand. on the other hand i can see that certain -- in countries which are dealing with budget consolidation weren't being completed and i'm convinced that if you want to deal with youth unemployment properly you need to the properly educating young people and build up a training system.

they will be telling us that they can't do that in the near future, but i can't get that task without saying at the same time where we get the financing from? i don't have any hope that all 27 would agree that these tasks can be done straightaway. everybody in europe needs a training system and not everybody will be prepared to spend european money on that. first of all, i would like to deal with the maintenance of our euro because it's important for the resolve and i can call for this commitment. otherwise i don't see any chance to get to 27 at the same time and if everybody is a member or almost everybody is a member of the the euros and one day, that means we can have a stronger combination of structural funds and cohesive funds as a better way of spending in our commitment. we don't have that time with the

hero. the international markets don't give us months, let alone years. secondly mr. swill budha, i heard what you said and i think that we agree. 50% of youth unemployment isn't just terrible, it isn't worthy of europe. so we must do everything to change that. i came to office at the time and we had over 5 million unemployed in germany and one reason i came into office was that the german government made reforms against which part of their party bases, part of their party bases were against social and assistance levels were cut. there were debates about what

was worthy. we had pension reforms and the retirement age and -- was increased and we had to wait five years for the results and we had over 3 million unemployed at the moment. we have a reasonable budget situation in the point is if you go through europe and say we only have blind austerity policies and structural agreements weren't necessary in the countries, then you would be acting against the interests of the unions and employees of europe. that's not right. greece got into difficulties when the deficit was 15%. they didn't have the troika then and nobody was making conditions. the deficit was 50% and it was decided that greece would not be

offered money at a reasonable rate any more. they had the discussion that you say to the greeks that the situation is bad. you have to say to them that it's not right and you strike every time if there is privatization. it is not right that you have a railway systems, which can't cover its wages through ticket prices. it's not right if the government ministers don't work together and it's not right if you have a type of system that no taxes are paid. if we are not able in europe to deal friendly and kindly to each other and act as if it is guided supernaturally we will not make any progress. with 9% of the world population and we produce 25% of the world gdp and 50% of social expenditure in the world. we think he can keep that and do everything without structural

reform. on transparency label markets -- so i will fight for people and the social partnership helped this through these times. our unions have reservations in raising the -- age and it's up to the politicians to make the right decisions. my question is this, while europe must change, we haven't been looking at what happens to the rest of the world. 90% of the economic growth takes place outside of europe. we won't be able to ensure prosperity for the future. mr. verhofstadt of course they don't have state authority but

we failed at the constitutional treaty. the referendum and france in the netherlands did not work out or elsewhere. we must take the populations with us towards more community. we cannot throw the child with the bathwater and if we have -- the truth is this. when we introduced the euro, the interest rates were low everywhere and the competitiveness of some countries became worse. so we had to make sure that we used our money to improve together and i'm sure that the commission will become that one day and i'm sure the council will become my second chamber one day and i'm sure the european parliament will take

european responsibilities. otherwise it won't work in the long-term. we must create the basis properly and give people a little bit of time so they can come with us. i have said a few things already and as you know from whom, let's be honest. it isn't one-sided austerity policy. the countries who have the program also forms a program. more difficult for structural funds than with savings. we are taking savings measures although there are to be reforming of the labor market. it is something we will need. one word on the u.k.. i want to have a strong u.k. in the european union to make that absolutely clear. i come from germany.

the u.k. was with us when we were liberated from national socialism and we had british soldiers in germany. i can imagine the u.k. would not be part of europe and i think it's good also for the u.k. to be part of europe. if you have a world of 7 billion you are alone in the world that doesn't mean that is good for the u.k. so i will do everything to keep the yukiya -- u.k. and their european union is a good partner. i will ask the inhabitants of this wonderful -- that you would be very happy and you won't be happy alone in this world with a strong europe with a 500 million in favor of freedom of democracy and look around in the world and see if that isn't the case and be happy that we are together. [applause]

speak to mrs. zimmer. you said it so well. the window of change has caused this to have freedom and in socialism it was overseen that social and personal freedoms belong together. that is right but you know what was also -- you can't make politics against people's economic understanding. that was a completely false system which forbade creativity and if we just talk about the social issues today, and redistributing and working to create money, that distribution does not work.

sum buddy has to be entrepreneur and someone has to earn and pay taxes. leaking to encourage these people in europe, the small enterprises and the big companies and if we can create something there, we can distribute things in a just way. but then you have to see to that. >> the 5% barrier. we have committed in germany to not criticize the rulings of our constitutional court but to accept them and to live with them. we don't know what the consequences of that will be. it will be mostly up to -- but i would just say, to try 3% and to fail again would not be the right answer. it is difficult. >> the chancellor does not want

to criticize the constitutional courts ruling that the ruling parliament is quite willing to do that. this ruling was a bad one and did not reflect the actual factual role of the european parliament. [applause] >> translator: now i suggest that we go the other way round. you gave me a full answer, thank you. >> very good timesaving. mr. farage. >> are you part of the e.u. or not chancellor? is a very different european union with 17 eurozone countries

on a journey and moving somewhere completely different in every single proposal that you have come up with mr. cameron is forced to say no to. so we are going to find ourselves effectively at the cinderella state because you will make decisions that affect the single market of which we are a member and we in fact according to you, even u.k. members of his parliament won't be able to vote on issues that affect the eurozone which undid my plate are not of the single market so i understand what you're saying but thankfully we find ourselves now in a completely open session. with a simple free trade agreement and mr. cameron will agree with you on this but ultimately, the british populace are seeking a totally new -- >> translator: thank you. misses them are. >> translator: very briefly on two points on the economy and business.

as a foundation for creating in, and thus pay for social measures, of course i agree but the conditions of austerity in the next 15 or 20 years are those countries that are the hardest hit it will not be possible to have sustainable business being developed and i would like to know whether this austerity policy, the sustainability pot -- policy can be implemented and whether we can do anything socially about the environment. secondly, you talked at one point about the european parliament being an important partner for you in all the crisis related issues. wife then has the fiscal pots gotten to the point that it has one and it is already clear that that pact has two points which are completely -- with e.u. law in material and in formal terms

and that has been regulated as certain european level. how can we go along with that if the parliament is going to be excluded from that? you will have to deal with that on the first. the fiscal pact is supposed to come into force them but it will be impossible to implement it so how are you going to reconcile that contradiction? thank you. ..

budgetary discipline that requires of its members certainly david cameron can rely on the support on that position. i think it is a shame he can't seem to rely on your own to support your position one of them is indeed asking for 136 million euros on a museum here in brussels. that is unnecessary spending in these current economic climate. i think we can agree that the businesses and families have to make less money go further and the e.u. should do the same and make every asset to cut the budget. we don't need a bigger budget we need a better use of the existing and i hope that you and david cameron will be able to agree on the need of budget restraints in the e.u.. in the u.k. now as it has been

remarked even the british labour party under budget would be cut. that's the environment we've been living in the u.k. and simply allow the budget to keep increasing year after year after year and it's being imposed on many member states and we see the cutbacks in many other essential public services completely unsustainable and i sure that you and david cameron would disagree on the mutually conclusive way forward. thank you. >> translator: thank you very much mrs. harms. i would like to point out i don't see the u.k. as strong, but as a country which requires internal reforms very much seems to be the industrialized and mr. miller band i don't think with the entire european position vacant steer this country on a healthy course.

second, tomorrow i will be traveling to greece so i've taken a close look at the current situation and i think we must admit finally that with that reform they have exhausted everything, past pensions and they've cut wages, which in germany wasn't imagined even in the time. it's pure austerity policy directly from germany and they're doing it at times of the worst world economic crisis that will end in a disaster. and that must be recognized. mrs. merkel, if the greeks can't be kept under reasonable conditions, then we won't be able to log on to the other crisis countries either. it's a disgrace that germany and

certain other countries are still carrying on the experiment when it comes to the maintenance of the e.u. that can be connected sensibly off debate to when the crisis comes to roost. that is being shown now but it's not right. this course says first of all the reforms and a member state and then we will follow-up with more emu and common responsibility and pull the european union apart. if you are analyzing things honestly you would say that this course that he would support isn't attainable if you could

get over the malaysia politics so it is a policy we haven't seen before. i will end of this course from the donor countries which are still wealthy for now. thank you, mrs. harms. [applause] >> i don't think that we disagree on the long term. the problem is the timing of the difference. yes i agree with european governments and treasury and the the federal chambers. you need it now coming you don't solve the problem are now the crisis if you don't put in place these things and these reforms and let me give you an example. what's happening today? today what is happening is the half of the austerity measures

in europe it's necessary for the growth in the long term but how does the product of this austerity is used for higher interest rates who are living outside of europe. it is used to pay high interest rates outside europe. that is the reality and the truth today. it's not coming from belgium, certainly not. it's coming from your own economics we are saying to you create the debt of the 60% and make it in that way that all these countries will participate and are obliged to reduce their debt so it is strengthening the fiscal discipline and it should

lower interest rates for countries like spain and italy so that we can recover so that is my question to you. we are not doing that because we can't solve this crisis in the short term. this parliament has taken a position on this. the position of the parliament is there is no agreement, there is no reduction from the new package. [applause] >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: chancellor come as a physicist, you appeal for various things we've heard about on the welfare and the minimum age package.

you can't apply these other countries in spain, portugal and ireland it's about property. all of the points that you have referred to the necessary structural reforms and so on i agree but they are done in a different way they're put in pressure in a different way. why are these so controversy all and the number tickets it's really tax evasion that is the problem now. what has been said about the u.k.? of course the u.k. belongs to and should be part and remain part of the european union, but in the city of london, they don't want britain to leave just as the company do but it might

be a popular thing to do to moan about the european union but i don't really think they want to leave because they would suffer so not political leaders and others who can do this for political purposes, and last on the budget, we do need a reasonable budget for good. others have said the british are those who fought for enlargement now the british, the polls and the others that are here there was a foreign minister's speech now they can say we don't need money for the enlargement and one of the leading campaigns have to be able to make funding available to those countries otherwise is simply unfair. we are fighting for the budget and you could say to mr. cameron

here there is a strong determination if the budget is rejected, vetoed and there are massive cutbacks we will fight for a reasonable, realistic and growth oriented budget in europe and that is the only way to be strong in the european parliament. that is what we are going to do and we call for your support. [applause] >> i would like to support the idea by mr. heritage but we need to keep the childrebe think thae custody of those children so if we really are debating i think that all of the children should come into our custody in putting the children from the british

marriage. chancellor, you have said quite rightly that any country that wants to join that isn't a member of the euro can and should work with us on the basis of solidarity. i agree and i have another proposal of solidarity. as my friend said, that should be used for the purpose of solidarity we should no longer send it back if we want to be serious about our budget but we have always tried to have a serious budget on investments there's only three or 4 percent of that which is, so how do we explain if this isn't properly used? the decisions would have been taken here mr. callanan on the majority basis there was a majority but in the european parliament to use the budget as such we should shoulder our

responsibilities. i would ask you something else. i would ask that research and innovation policies all of us talk about research and innovation policies, but where is the european research now that we should be supporting? and where is the innovation that we should be supporting? we need to create them in the short term, and we need a bit of initiative so that we can in fact applied innovation and create jobs and growth so we need the council to help us get out of this impasse. we have spent five years to get out of the serious crisis. i am sure we could've got out of it more quickly if we have allocated funds. thank you. [applause] >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: mrs. merkel, please. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: briefly to respond to just a few things, as regards to the legal basis of

the fiscal treaty what we would like to see is some countries didn't want to do that or only under conditions which we would have -- we would have to do other changes in the financial market regulation which i don't think is right. so we had the government agreement. we said very clearly that within five years we would be integrated in the european treaties so it's not a completely new pillar being built up in the council. the legal counsel told us that it is one way to go. we need you and it's no doubt to

put this in the treaty as quickly as possible. mrs. harms i know a lot is being called on increased. i want to beat around the bush on that. the increase for those that are very rich and have gone and those are having to pay the price that can't afford it for the sake of responsibility and the state apparatus is too big. some pensions increase have increased more quickly than other european countries to compare with portugal speaking to the imf there were many situations the were better even though the economic strength is different i wouldn't mind to speak about the baltic countries who carried out incredible

reforms coming and now on the path of economic growth. in the global financial crisis with the we need, latvia and estonia carried out incredible reforms coming in today they have good economic growth rates. i always sit with my colleagues, who was a social democrat you need to talk to him about the greek reform program. it's with regards to the new member states who have made a lot of sacrifices and said it very clearly to us what is necessary or not. and then once again to points don't get worked up.

the european policy is in parliament that's wonderful. we don't always agree. you don't know the social democrats. he doesn't know them when they are interacting in a city the debt redemption fund apart from the fact that we don't have a european legal basis we need to have the change but it doesn't help us in the current situation. none of the countries with the great indefinite have a chance to pay back their debt these countries must try to get on their high deficits and if you

say there is no to pack if we don't agree to the fund, that isn't a good method if you want to try to find a compromise but i have noted it. i agree the u.k. is always a country that would favor enlargement and if you want to enlarge the e.u. you must be in favor. at the moment we have a huge crisis but we will have a big crisis if the economic power of europe and the non-europe countries doesn't come together in the past we did things correctly. there were structural cohesion funds and we should have had more flexibility and we went from that at the moment things have been spent more flexibly to

combat the youth unemployment, etc. we have learned a lot of lessons and i would say the following. we would have to sit now on the budget and not wait because for the perception in the world how much the investment is available for europe this budget is important and if we don't know who can invest in 2014 but also in central and eastern europe almost all of the investment comes from the structure under the cohesion fund so it gives a signal if we want to agree now and that is to regard research policy in favor of course that we take forward and we must give

a look to the budget that if every year if we have a 40% increase in each year that will end one day. it wasn't my message how to deploy the funds sensibly. thank you. [applause] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much, chancellor. finally can i just make three announcements? first of all, the open conference has had a much higher rate of attendance in the equivalent sessions that gives food for thought. secondly, yes i know you've

heard that point and secondly, chancellor and as the president of this house i do very much want to get this across. you said something very important. anything in the european level the european parliament is a partner and gives them legitimacy to the european methods. thank you for that statement. i would like to hear that being reflected in the european council, and i hope he would influence things in that way and i would urge you to influence that. you talked about latvia and as far as i know made a speech and

talked about the enormous sacrifices his countrymen and to become a member of the european union, and he said if the response to the e.u. and to adopt a budget whereby they wouldn't get any cohesion after all the sacrifices the were made it would be similar to the member we were talking about. that would be the end of the support, so in this budget isn't just about a few billion here and there it is about the surge of solidarity that should prevail in europe and i am thankful that you referred to that and also talked about the german social democrats. well that's much better here than it is in the german parliament. you said that, too and second, the social democrats are effect for stability in the policy i'm sure you agree with me when i say that. thank you very much. [applause]

i enjoy watching book tv and every broadcast of the various news programs and coverage without all the sandbags and the kind of editing programs and gives an opportunity to assume the news information and make up my mind about what is going on. c-span is a great way to get kind of an unfiltered view. chinese president hu jintao addressed members of the communist party of china during the opening of the national

congress. in much reported to be his last major address, the president boasted about the achievements of the growing chinese economy but he did warn against corruption and political unrest in the parties. mr. hu served as china's president the past ten years and will formally stepped down at the end of the year. his speeches courtesy of the state run china central television, known as cctv. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: hello on behalf of the central committee. pnac the printed copies of my reports have been issued to you. i will outline the main point.

the national congress is one that has entered the moderate society in all respects. the underlining the femur is to hold high under the guidance with the elements and the policy of reform. at that time all difficulties on the path of socialism and the chinese characteristics and the

moderate society [inaudible] [applause] at this moment they have over 90 years to let the people of all ethnic groups with the poor prosperous [inaudible] for the chinese nation. [applause] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: we are all proud of the achievements in the idea and conviction of the

people as well as the historic responsibilities. at the global national ends of the transition continue to undergo the unprecedented opportunities of the development as well as the risk and challenge before the party must keep in mind the trust of the people and we must work harder to pursue the developments for the social harmony to complete [inaudible] [applause]

the work in the past five years and the experience that we've gained in the past ten years in the path of socialism over comes difficulties and achieve some success in building the moderate society [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: the major achievements in the work the economy has developed major progress has been led in the reform and opening up. living standards have improved and the strides have been made in the development and the legal

system. the elements of the culture have reached a new stage and progress is made in the social development and the state has been reached in the national defence with has been further strengthened in the diplomacy. in the past years the progress has been made some progress has been registered in its nature and it's been achieved radically the achievements had been made on the element and major progress has been made conducting the reform and innovation in the party building. while it is for their expanded

major progress has also been made in certain events of party officials and managing qualified professionals. we have intensified activities to encourage the current members and organization in the party organization. community level organizations have been strengthened and the product. on the other hand iv improvement and there's lots of difficulties and problems faced with of the unbalanced and sustainable elements. many of the system act stand in the way of the development and

the region is still large and the income disparity is. some community level party organizations and others in the fight against corruption remains a challenge for us. we must take these difficulties and work harder to resolve them. our work in the past five years postpones the society and we have made the most of the period of the strategic opportunities in that meet the challenges to

the new stage of developments. over the past ten years we have achieved new historic success with the building of the moderately postponed society in all respects. we continued economic development will for prosperity since we have worked hard to ensure an increase in people's well-being and more balanced than ever before and all of this is widely recognized in the correct guidance and experience what to be achieved in the foundation in 1949 [inaudible]

[applause] here on behalf of the committee i wish to express the party people organizations and all walks of life compared in the homes of the region and as well as overseas china as opposed to the organization.

the most important achievement in the past ten years is that we have formed the development and we follow the pherae. and the radical innovation on the development and building socialism. the scientific development was created by integrating the marxism and the underlining it embodies the world view and the methodology for the development.

this still provides supply due to scientific answers to the questions in the new environment and how the country should achieve it and represent a new level at the law of socialism is the chinese characteristics and the latest achievement in developing the system and the chinese ballistic some to the collective system and a powerful theoretical guiding all of the party in the country together and the important threat the scientific development is the radical guidance as we work toward the future by applying

the development it is a major significance and far reaching we must apply it throughout every aspect. the party must make the social development a top priority in applying to take people first and a fly in the development to make a comprehensive balanced and sustainable development applying of a scientific element to a holistic approach as a fundamental way of applying the development to the levels of the

realistic and a dramatic these are the futures making a theoretical innovation and they must engage in practice and the aspirations of the people to the explorer the social was somewhat we must ensure china always as the driving force for the bright future of the socialism would create the [inaudible] [ap

[speaking in native tongue] [applause] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: achieving the chinese characteristic the issue of what we have to take is important for the survival of the party, the future of china, the destiny of the chinese nation at the wellbeing of the people. exploring the path to the national renewal in china that was economically and culturally backward is an extremely arduous task. over the past 90 plus years, relying on on the people and adapting the basic marxism to china's's conditions and the underlying trend over time our party has pursued its own independently and it has achieved great success in the

development and created and developed the socialism that changes the future and destiny of the chinese people elimination. the party's first generation of leadership led the full party and the people completing the new democratic revolution carrying out and establishing the basic system of socialism there by accomplishing the most profound and the greatest social transformation in china's history this created the fundamental political prerequisite in the foundation for the development and progress in the contemporary china. in the course of the socialist development the party has creative theories and made a

success despite serious setbacks thus providing invaluable experience as well as a theoretical and material basis for the initiative of building socialism with chinese characteristics in the historical period and. they fled the party and the people in china and conducting the review of china's's experiences and building socialism. on this basis on the experience of the world's cultural was some to the historic decision to shift the focus of the party to the economic development and pursue the policy opening up the appreciation of the underlying bill of socialism and for taking

our own growth and building socialism with chinese characteristics providing scientific answers is a great initiative of building socialism with chinese characteristics that successfully launched the party's third generation of leadership and led the whole party and the people of all ethnic groups in china with a basic pherae. standing the severe test held by the domestic international development is a major setback in the world socialism with chinese characteristics. they reaffirmed the party's basic programs and said the goal of the basic framework for achieving this goal. developing a socialist market

economy from the basic economic system of income distribution of a new phase carrying out the performing opening up it has to have with the great undertaking advancing socialism chinese characteristics into the 21st century. the central committee has seized this important period of strategic opportunities and promote innovation with institutional building in the course of building a moderately prosperous society in our respect. you've emphasized the need to put people first and pursue the balance and the sustainable development we have called for building the society and speeding up the ecological progress and we have adopted the overall implementing steps toward advancing the cause of socialism with chinese

characteristics. they strive to the people's well-being and the government's capacity and advanced major from the new historical points for 30 plus years of exploration to opening up how high the socialism with chinese characteristics and rejected both and they've taken the path of socialism and chinese characteristics with chinese characteristics and the socialist system with chinese characteristics are the fundamental accomplishment made by the party and people in the course of the past 90 plus years

we must continue to enrich them. [applause] in building socialism with chinese characteristics, we base ourselves on the basic reality that china is in the primary stage of socialism for the political cultural and ecological progress the general path is to achieve the social modernization and the great renewal of the nation. developing socialism with chinese characteristics is a long-term arduous task of we must adhere to socialism with chinese characteristics developed as required by the times in both and has a distinctive national figure keeping up with the times.

to achieve a victory for socialism underused historical condition should have a firm grasp of the basic requirements and make them share convictions of pool party and the people of all groups they must maintain the people's principal position in the country and must continue to release and develop the forces we must preserve and reform the opening up and safeguard social fairness and justice. we must strive for the common prosperity. we must promote social harmony. we must pursue peaceful development. we must uphold the leadership in the party. we must be aware that china is in the primary stage of

socialism and will remain so when. the basic condition has not changed nor has the principal problem in this society to make the overgrowing material and cultural needs of the people backward social production in china's international position as the largest developing country in the world we must bear in mind under any circumstances the reality that china remains in the primary stage of socialism and the law remains so to base ourselves on this reality in pursuing all of our endeavors of the reform. the party's basic wine is a life blood to the party and the country. we must adhere to the central task of the economic development with the two basic points and a cardinal principal in the policy of reform and opening up in our great endeavor to develop

socialism with chinese characteristics. we should neither looked down upon ourselves, we must take solid steps for the socialism with chinese characteristics. as long as we remain true to our ideals and our conviction to relax and or act recklessly which would have the result to compete the building of the society in all respects and the communist party of china celebrates and turn strine into a moderate society that is prosperous, strong, space, harmonious when the people's republic of china has every confidence in the task and the

theories. [applause] the building as a moderate society always does. the current environment shows china's developments that must be achieved. we need to have an understanding of the nature and position for the opportunity with cool that it missed to the challenges to obtain the goal with another level of the society. [applause]

based on china's economic and social development we must work hard to reach the requirements they're building the society with the 16th and 17th national congress of the party and the main goal the economy maintains the development and progress should be made in the basis of making the development more balanced and sustainable together it is in the per capita income. the people's democracy should be expanded to the country's power improves significantly and major progress should be made in the

environmental societies. this completes the building of the lubber of society with great political courage and vision there is no time in the key sectors of all measures and systems to pursue the developments in a scientific way. we should set up a wide developed scientific and effective framework of the system to ensure the operating institution in all sectors. [applause] complete in the building of the society and the party must work singleminded lee. the states should give more to

the areas and invest in leaders to accelerate their reform and the capacity for the development and raise their living standards. we should encourage the good conditions to keep taking them to pursue that organization to make the reform and development. [applause] accelerating the improvement of the market economy and the change of the growth model taking the development as the central task is vital to the national real and development still holds the key to address a lot of the problems we have in china by promoting the sustained and sound economic development can we leave the solid material foundation for enhancing the country's prosperity.

improving the people's well-being and the tearing the social harmony and stability we must unwaveringly with our strategic thinking development accounts. [applause] in contemporary china, pursuing development in a scientific way best embodies the thinking that only development council. taking the pursuit of development in a scientific way as the underlining died when the index of leading the change of the growth model as a major attack and a strategic choice which have made for promoting the overall development in response to changes in gross domestic and international development to speed up the creation of a new growth model and ensure it is based on improved quality and performance we should fire all types of market purchase -- participants

for pursuing innovation development for the moderate industry and create new favorable conditions for the open economy taking these steps to enable us to sustain long-term development. they carry the industrialization in a new way that is advancing the i.t. applications urbanization modernization and the introduction and the urbanization and coordination in agriculture modernization promoting the harmonized development of the industry location i.t. application, urbanization and agricultural specifically we need to focus

first of the economic structural reform across the board. a deepening the reform is crucial for accelerating the change in the growth model. the underlying issue that we face in the economic structural reform is how to strike a balance between the role of the government and that of the marquette which follows more closely the rules of the market to play the role of the government we should consolidate and develop the public-sector while public ownership takes a verse forms and invest more in the major industries that comprise the lifeline of the economy and the vital national security. we should invest in the vitality of the state-owned sector and its capacity to leverage while at the same time we must

encourage support on dimond public sector and ensure under all forms of ownership of equal access for the production in accordance with the law to compete on a level playing field protected by equal we should improve the system and accelerate the reform of the fiscal and taxation system that should meet the reform in the financial system and improve the financial supervision and oversight perlo financial innovation and ensure the stability. second, implement the strategy of innovation driven development and scientific and technological information for durell national strength that we must give top priority over the national development. we should follow the path to make innovation with the chinese features and take steps to promote innovation to catch up with global advances the we

should increase capacity for making the innovation integrated and for making further innovation on the basis of observing the overseas science and technology is in place a greater emphasis on making the innovation through the collaboration. we should deepen and reform the system for managing the science and technology to speed up the development of the national innovation system which established the technological innovation and which enterprises play a leading role in the markets points away and enterprises and universities in the research institute work together. we should improve the knowledge base innovation the projects that implement the strategy concerning intellectual property rights. third, carey of strategic adjustments in the economic structures. this is a major goal of six other leading the change of the growth model. we must remove the major structural areas to sustain the economic development that is focused on improving the demand

and industrial structure for the same regions and investing the urbanization. we should maintain the strategic focus of the domestic demand to beat up the establishment of a long-term mechanism to increase the consumer demand and expand it. we should focus on developing the real economy as a foundation we should adopt policies and measures to better facilitate the development of the economy to promote this on the growth of the strategic industries and advanced manufacturing industries speed up the transformation of creating a traditional industry and develop and expand the service sector in the modern service industries. we should continue to implement the strategy for the regional

development and fully leverage the comparative advantages in the region that should increase the support for the old revolutionary based areas, border areas and poor areas. fourth, integrate the urban area development resolving issues relating to agriculture as sues relating to agriculture as the number one priority for integrating the solution to these issues it should better balance and promote a common priority. for the global prosperity and encourage them to participate in modernization and equal footing

and we should speed up the development and raise overall production capacity of our culture and ensure food security and effective supply of the major writer cultural products. we should work harder to build these areas and carry out programs as the deviation from the development of the rule working and living conditions. we should improve the basic systems for the rule and establish the new systems for the intensive agricultural operations that specialize and speed up improvements in the institutions and mechanisms for promoting integrated development to form a new type of relation in the agriculture and the rural areas to support rural development to each other.

.. to equal importance to e port and inport and make full use of the overalled a venn teenage use position. make better use of foreign capital. >> translator: we should encourage chinese companies to expand oversea at the faster pace and make over planning for

by lateral multilateral and regional corporation. should be -- economic risk. must have -- winning the tough battle of economic structure the change of growth model and increase the vitality of -- [applause] >> path of and promote the reform of the structure. people of democracy is -- by the party of the structure is an important part. we must continue to make both active and prudent efforts to carry out reform and political structure and make people's democracy more extensive.

must ensure the unity of the party. the that decision of the people as mastered of the country. and more governance. guarantee the fundamental position of the people as masters of the country and to -- the of the party and country and keeping the motivated. we should expant socialist democracy based on the rule of law. and promote socialist progress. we should place greater emphasis on the way the party exercises leadership and the governance to ensure that it leads the people in effectively in governing the country. we should attach greater importance to the improve the system of democracy and the form of democracy to ensure that people conduct the election decision making. and that -- with the law.

which is greater scope to the rule of law plays in the governance and social management. upheld the unity, and author of the country's system and ensure that the people extensive freedom as described by law. we should play importance on the somatic and -- to the socialist political system. to promote political promise and reform of the political structure we need to concentrate on the following: first, support and ensure that exercise of state power by the people through people's progress. we should support people's in -- including play are as or organs of state power and exercising legislative and policy making and personnel employment and -- nonders with the law.

organization -- [inaudible] of the legislative work and stepping up the oversight of the government. property portion of the level to people's congress politically those elected to the workers farmers, and intent yules on the line of their --. from a leading party in government official should be reduced. and duty lies in officers should be established. to include the system of socialists and democrat. related to social and economic development. as well as problems involving

people with the immediate interest through organs of state power, committee of the -- political political parties, people's organizations and other. [inaudible] the chinese people's political conference should serve as a matter channel through democracy including system of political presentation, democratic oversight, and the peter's pension and the liberation and the administration of affairs. and deliver a job in coordinating relations -- with the democratic parties. conduct consultation of the -- third, prove community level democracy. should prove the level,

self-governance and the leadership of organization. broaden the [inaudible] self-governance and enrich the concept to ensure that the people have greater and more democratic rights. of the working class improve the democratic management system, the enterprise system, and the public institutions with workers and employees, congress, as the reform and protect workers and employees to democratic rights. the level of organizations should get involved to integrate governments in the administration. to promote law based govern innocence of the country. we should make laws in the scientific way and have strictly -- justice and ensure that everyone abides by the law. we must make sure that all of

our equal before the law and that laws are strictly enforced and not broken. which prove the socialist system of law. we should carry out intensive education of the law and ensure that officials are guided by in both thinking and action. more organization -- have the privilege of overstepping the constitution and the law. no one in the position of power is allowed in any way to take one's own -- [inaudible] of the law. [applause] the form of administrative system we should separate government administration from the management of enterprise

state earth, public decision and social organizations. and substitute a well structured clean and efficient government that has scientifically function and satisfied the people. and delegate more power to the level. establish larger government and division of function among them. we should control the size of government bodies, and the numbers of the leading officials. we should improve the -- [inaudible] structure reform and conduct major political ways. six, establish a [inaudible] conducting checks and oversights. we must power party and -- [inaudible]

of a institutional checks and people to stay informed about participating and oversee party in the govern innocence population. we should make sure that make -- [inaudible] oversight powers check each other and function in concert. we should continue to conduct scientific, knick, and law-s bid policy making and improve addition making in the future. we should make the exercise of power more open. we should the party economic and legal oversight as well as an oversight of public opinion to oversee the power and power is exercised in the transparency manner. [applause] seventh, con sol state and develop the broadest -- [inaudible] united front. we should hold high the

[inaudible] and socialism and consolidate this and the political foundation of the united front. guided by the principle of law in the long-term exist [inaudible] the unity and cooperation with the democratic party and public with the party of affiliation. we should face fully [inaudible] ethnic groups and improve the system of original ethnic an ton my. and speed up the development. and ensure that all -- develop together. [applause] we should increment the -- [inaudible] of the religious and fully leverage the positive throw of religious. and the [inaudible] economic and social

developments. we should encourage and guide members of new social to contribute more to the socialism craiskts. we should continue to implement the party's policy oversee chinese and affairs and -- trying to overseas chinese and -- [inaudible] organization -- [applause] the socialist path of making political advance in the craiskt characteristic is a path that -- in pursuing a -- [applause]

>> translator: developing a strong socialist culture in chinese, culture is the life of blood of nation. and gives the people a sense of belonging. complete the building of a prosperous society in the respect and achieve the great renounal and create a new surge in promoting socialist culture and bring about the greatest development and enrichment. enuse -- increase the cultural soft power and enable to educate the people, serve society, and boost development. to develop a strong socialist culture in china, we must take the socialist path of promoting culture advance with chinese characteristics. we should adhere to the goal of

serving the people in socialist, the policy of having hundred flowers bloom and a school of thought contend. the principle maintaining close contact with the people lies in the reality. we should promote ethical problem and material progress to develop a national scientific and people oriented socialist cultural and -- the world and the future. [applause] to develop strong socialist culture in china, it is critical to inspire the cultural creativity of the nation. we should deep, the reform of the cultural sector, release and develop culture forces, foster a democratic atmosphere in both academic research and artistic

pursuit. create a vast culture arena from all sources. by doing so, we'll open up a new horizon and promoting china's culture advance, the chinese nation will continually burst forth and the cultural life will forge before. the interest will be better protected. the ethical moral standards as well as the scientific cultural standards of the people will be fully raised. -- core socialist values we should don't marxism to the china conditions and keeping with the times and increase the appeal to the people. work hard to equip the party with the system of socialism with chinese characteristic and educate the people in these theory. we should carry out education about the ideal and conviction. rally the people under the great

banner of socialism with chinese characteristic. we should vigorously forecast are the chinese national character and promote the underlying trend of the times. collectivism, and socialism, we should promote prosperity, democracy, civility of freedom, equality, justice and rule of law and advocate patriotism and -- to cultivate core socialist values. second, improve civic morality in the all around way. we should intensity education and public morality, probably ethics, family virtue, and individual integrity and advocate traditional chinese virtue a new trend of the time. we should press ahead to improve civil morality, the 0 true, the good, and beautiful and reject

the false and ugly. we should encourage people meet their obligations. we should create social atmosphere in which work is honored and creation is welcomed. practices integrity, encouraging dedication, promoting harmony. we should conduct more public activities to promote cultural and ethical progress encourage volunteer service. third, enrich people's lives. we should pursue people of culture creation and provide the people with better nourishment to the mind. we should be focus narrowed -- and carry out at the faster pace cultural prospect that -- benefit the people. we should develop a system for -- traditional cultural and promote outstanding traditional chinese culture. we should improve the -- online services and advocate healthy

things on the internet. we should extend scientific knowledge make the whole nation better educationed and. we should carry out finance activities across the country and promote both recreational and competitive sports. fourth, we have to overall stress of the international competitiveness to the chinese cultural. we should promote rapid development both social effective and economic benefits with priority on the [inaudible] we should watch more major public cultural project and programs. and improve the public cultural service system. we splowld mote inte ration of culture. science and technology. it and make cultural operations larger in size and more specialized. we should open the cultural

secker wider to the outside world and draw on the cultural achievement of other countries. we must adhere to the goal of the advancing socialist culture. deepen our awareness of inconfidence in chinese culture, and strive to meet the grand goal called developing a socialist culture in chinese. [applause] >> translator: social development are improving the people -- and making innovations management. the social development is very important guarantee that maintaining social -- [inaudible] the most intensify our effort to improve the public services system and to make innovation, social management. and we also -- a socialist

[inaudible] fundamental and overwhelming majority of the people. and social development the most high priority to ensure the people well being to approve the culturallize the reform and [inaudible] we should bring as much benefit as possible to the people [inaudible] as brought the most pressing and of the greater concern. we should make making progress ensuring that all the people in china arrive to education, employment, medical and old age care and housing so that they will lead a better life. to -- the social development must accelerate social structure reform with a aim of establishing a socialist system of social management -- [inaudible] we should quicken the pace of

the following system. a law-based soarvel management system featuring party leadership. government -- and public participation and public system that is governance lead and urban. the system of [inaudible] social organization in which function of the government are separated from those of social organizations right and responsibility are clearly established and social organizations exercise the [inaudible] in accordance with the law and social management mechanism that [inaudible] exercise dynamic demonstration and response to a system. the important task in this regard to run -- satisfaction of the people deliver a better job and employment make every effort to include individual income for the development of the social

security system [inaudible] and people's health and make innovation a social management. education is the corner stone of national renewable and social progress. the high priority to developing education implementing the party's education policy to the -- ensuring that education serves socialist moralization and the people take integration and promote development of the people. and -- [inaudible] and socialist cause could develop morally, intellectually and fiscally. we should provide education for all students. given -- the reform such as improving the college of education. and we should vigorously promote education and make sure balanced education resources [inaudible]

ethnic minority. all of this is [inaudible] requires knowledge. employment is crucial to the people's well being. they must -- promoting self-reliance and regulate employment and the government-backed employment. and the strategy of giving top priority to employment ends a proactive employment policy. we should encourage greater unemployment -- through multiple channel and create new businesses. we should do -- [inaudible] skilled training and improve people's ability to find jobs and start up their own businesses. we should improve the human resources market and employment services. we should improve the system of labor standards and [inaudible] for labor relations and labor relations. to ensure that the people sharing the development the

reform of income destruction system and increase individual income with the economic development and [inaudible] steps with improvement in labor productivity. and we should raise the share of individual income of the destruction of national income and increase the share of work in primary distribution. a balance should be struck between officials and the -- [inaudible] of primary and second disaster dare distribution. emphasis on the secondary distribution. we should include major income for multiple channel and the rate which income is distributed, product lawful include and low-income -- adjust excess i havely high income and prohibit illicit income. social security is a system for

ensuring people's livelihood and distribution. we should substitute a complete multitier system for providing the sings for both the urban and rural population. emphasis on make a system more -- [inaudible] and make sure that the transfer of social security in the locality. we should widen channel and raise money for social security funds. introduce a system to manage investment operation of social insurance funds and ensure that these funds are safe and appreciate over time. we should [inaudible] the construction and management of low-income housing and better needs for families basic housing needs. it is a [inaudible] for promoting well-rounded development of the person. giving to the -- improving people's health we should put the disease prevention first. make [inaudible] focus of our work. support both traditional chinese

medicine and medicine. establish a mechanism for both to basic medical and health -- and such endefer that the community level. we should give high priority to -- [inaudible] reform in medical insurance medical treatment, public housing, and the [inaudible] should improve the policy people's health and provide them with safe, effective, convenient, and affordable public health. conduct social management in a more scientific way we must improve the -- [inaudible] ing concerning the capacity for social management and [inaudible] promote application in the [inaudible] we should improve the way in which the government provides public services, strengthen the system of social management and the community level. and leverage to the people in social management. we should correct the problem

[inaudible] and in place a mechanism in which the party and the government -- upheld in the right and interest of the people. we should maintain regular and open channels for the people to voice their demands coordinating their interest and -- protecting their rights. we should improve the public safety system and workplace safety environment and enterprises to very serious -- we should intensify efforts to ensure law and order, improve dimension of system for -- and protect the people's lives and property. we should improve the national security tragedy and the -- strategy and improve national security. as long as the party makes an concerted effort everyone contributes in harmony and benefits -- [inaudible] [applause]

>> the making great effort to promote ecological progress. promoting ecological progress is a long-term task of vital importance to the people's well being and china's future. weapon must give high priority to making the progress. the a beautiful country lasting as a sustainable development of the chinese nation. [applause] we should remain committed to the basic policy conserving resource and protecting the environment as well as the prips. of giving high priority to conserving resources, protecting the environment, and promoting the natural restoration. and strive for green, circular, low-carbon development. we should preserve our

geographic call space and improve our industrial structure wave production and way of life in interest of conserving resources and protecting environment. we should address the root cause of deterioration of the ebbing lodge candle environment tokers reverse the trend. and contribute our share to the global ecological society. first, improve development of the geographic call space. [inaudible] between population, resources and environment and promoting economic social, and ecological benefits. pace of development under control and regulate [inaudible] we should leave more space for danger to achieve the renewable. we should keep more [inaudible] to the farmers and -- the beautiful homeland. [applause]

we should ensure the speedy implementation of the functional zoning strategy in advance urbanization, agricultural development, and ecological security. in a scientific and balanced way. we should -- capacity for exploiting marine resources, safe guard the maritime interest, of build china in to power. second promote all around resource conservation, we should conserve resources and use them efficiently. bring about a fundamental change in the way resources are utilized. and drastically reduce energy, water, and land consumption for unit of gdp. we should launch a revolution energy production and consumption support the development of energy efficient and low-carbon industry. new resources of renewable energy resources and ensure the security. we should ensure that the [inaudible] protecting farmland is not crossed strictly control land

uses. we should develop a economy to reduce waste and resource consumption, reuse resources and recycle waste in the production distribution and consumption. third, intensify production to the ecosystem and environment. we should launch major project for restoring the system, and should improve the system for preventing and mitigating natural disaster. we should take a holistic approach to -- air, water soil pollution. and putting putting it first and facing the environmental problem that pose a hazard to the people. we'll work with the international community. on the basis of equity and -- [inaudible] with the common differentiated

responsibility and respect ofive capability of all countries. enhance system building to promote ecological policy. and reward the mechanism should be adopted in keeping with the need of promoting ecological progress we should establish a system for developing and protecting -- the space. we should strive environmentally monetary. we should encourage publicity of and educate ecological problem. and we must treasure nature protect the echo system more actively and [inaudible] [applause] accelerating the modded -- modernization in the defense. to -- [inaudible] the and armed forces we follow the guidance of the military

thinking and thinking on the enhancing the military capacity in the period on thinking on strength, our national center of armed forces and party thinking of our national defense and armed forces in a new condition. we should act to meet the -- and security strategy and ensure that the armed forces fully carry out their historical mission in the new stage in the new century. we should implement the military strategy of active defense, the appearance, expend and intensify and the ability to accomplish a wide range. the most important of which is to [inaudible] the information. we should fully -- the nature of the armed forces and ensure that they are increant vise in all respect. we must adhere to the party's

absolute leadership of the armed forces and constantly cull elevate the core value of contemporary revolution. we should -- [inaudible] i.t. application and achieve a military modernization and step up the effort. we should the development of new and high technology weapon and equipment. and -- a high caliber personnel in large numbers and we should increase efforts to run the armed forces with the strict [inaudible] and in other nonders with the law to the new level. we should allocate reform of the national defense and armed forces in both active and priewbt way in the military transmore make. we should -- [inaudible] for the innovation in defense --

and. and continue to follow the chinese-style that integrated development of military and civilian sector. we should speed up the butte -- [inaudible] and we should consolidate [inaudible] and the government and military and the civil yap -- civil yabs. national defense policy that different in the nature. [applause] enriching the practice of one country, two system and inconvenient, chinese reunification. since the return to mother land, they embarked a broad road in

which they and the mainland descraw on each other and pursue common development with the success of the one country two country principal. the underlying goal of the principle and policy developed -- adopted by the central government is to uphold china's sovereignty, security, and development interest and maintain long -- the central government will act in strict corp. dance with the administrative region and firmly support the chief executive and governance of the two special administrative regions. in gofning the two region in accordance with the law, the government will firmly prospective them in leading the people from all walks of life focusing on economic development take effective steps to improve the well being and advancing orderly democracy as well as incliffsness, mutual support and

harmony. the central government -- [inaudible] two regions promote exchanges and corporation between them in all fields. convince that our compatriot -- not only have the wiz disom ability and resourcefulness to successfully govern and develop -- [inaudible] they can certainly also play an active role in national affairs, and share with other people a long ethnic group in china the dignity of being chinese -- [applause] with reunification is in the best of the chinese nation including taiwan to achieve

peaceful reunification we must, above everything else, ensure peaceful growth of the -- we must adhere to the principle and continue to adhere to the china principle sustain changes and corporation. encourage the compatriot on both sides of the strait to pursue a common endeavor, a resolution any attempt for the independence. the chinese people will allow anyone with any source separate -- [inaudible] [applause] working hand and hand we the sons and daughters of the chinese nation will ensurely

establish a great caution of the reunification over the course of the common endeavor to achieve the chinese nation. [applause] >> translator: continuing to promote a novel source of peace and development of mankind. mankind has only one [inaudible] and and country only one role to share. the lure of the jungle not lead to the coexistence of the society and -- use of force cannot make the world a better place. to pursue csh development and corporation and uphold the law. eliminating the poverty and avoid confrontation in order to be -- world of endeering, peace and common prosperity. the -- [applause]

the cause of promoting equality mutual learning and mutual beneficial corporation international relations. and making joint efforts to uphold international and justice. china will continue to hold beaner of peace corporation and mutual benefit. and drive to uphold the peace and -- promote common developments. china will also follow the path of peaceful development and firmly pursuit independence for foreign policy of the peace. china will unwaverly follow a [inaudible] and promote -- china is committed to grow friendship and

[inaudible] improve and grow our relations with the developed country by expended areas of corporation and differences with them and establish a new type of relation of long-term stability and growth with other major countries. we'll continue to promote froip and with our neighbors -- friendly relation -- [inaudible] the voice of the international affairs. china will remain a reliability friend and [inaudible]

of other developing countries. a multilateral affair and work to make the system more just and applicable. conduct friendly exchanges with political parties and organizations of ore countries. and encourage people's progresses national and local community of the chinese people local government and people's organizations 0 should increase the exchange with the consolidate the relations with other countries. and chinese people the development we are ready to work with the people of other countries to promote the [inaudible] and development -- [applause] >> translator: making party building more scientific in all respects, leading the people in

completing the building of moderately prosperous society and advancing social and achieving the great renewable of the chinese nation is an important mission for the party. they must bear in mind only by taking upon the people and delivering benefits to them can the party remain invincible. and only being on guard against adversity and types of [inaudible] boldly ahead can they remain in the forefront of the times. all party members must focus on strengthening the party's government capacity and advance nature impurity. which don't free up our minds and carry-on reform and innovation and uphold the principle that authorities should supervisor and run itself with the strict discipline. we should make all the effort to -- organizationally and improve the conduct.

and improve the party regulation. and ens chance [inaudible] self-improvement, self-development, and self-innovation. and the party to innovative service oriented. [applause] to to scare ensure that the party is always -- always the firm leadership for guiding the cause of socialism with chinese characteristics. and thus we must accomplish the important task we must be firm in our ideal and conviction, remain true to the faith of communists. put people first, exercise governance for the people, and always maintain close ties with them. vigorousically promote interparty democracy and enhance the party creative vitality. deepen reform for the system of

the management and official personnel and build a con ting for govern governance. we adhere to the principal of the party exercising leadership over personnel management and attract outstanding individuals from all over for the cause of the party and the country. promote community level party building in an innovative way and consolidate the organizational foundation are the organization of governance combat corruption and political character of integrity. communists marxism, socialism, and communism is in all tests. we should give high priority to the develop the party [inaudible] which is essential for party building and educate party

members and officials in the shared ideal with the socialism and the chinese characteristic and encourage them to pursue the ideal. we should intensify the education in the party's spirit which is at the core of the party building [inaudible] the party fine tradition and conduct and make the members an official develop a official and correct world view and firm and correct attitude toward power and career. we should raise the moral standards of the party has been which is is the foundation of party building. encourage party members and officials to become role models and [inaudible] practice itses social views on -- socialist ethics. servicing the people is the purpose of the party. and putting people first and exercising governance for the people is ultimate yardstick for

judging autothe party's performance in this regard. at all times, we must put the people's interest above everything else. [inaudible] one with the people, share the common destiny with them and rely on them to propel us forward. to maintain the party 'advanced nature and purity. we should carry out intensive activity throughout the party to study and practice the -- with the focus on the need to serve the people and be -- honest and [inaudible] in conduct. we should solve pressing problems of [inaudible] the people and raise our ability to do people-related work well under new conditions. and federation in fully their

role as bridging linking the party and government with the people. voicing public concern and protecting people's legitimate rights and interest. inner party democracy is the life of the party. we should adhere to the democratic [inaudible] improve institutions for inner party democracy and [inaudible] ensure the party member have a right to [inaudible] participate in and oversee party affairs as well as the right to vote. we should improve the system of party congresses to raise the proportion of delegates from among workers and farmers and introduce the system for delegates to party congress submit proposal. to -- the [inaudible] recession of the party committee

and improve procedure rurals and decision making procedures of their standing committees. chinese characteristic it is imperative to build a governance for firm and political conviction competent, and energetic and have conduct. we should adhere to the principal of the party supervisorring the performance of officials enwe should appointed officials on the merit without official of the basis of both moral integrity and the professional -- with priority gich given and promotional officials outstanding performance with popular support. we should deepen reform of the system for the management of official and personnel of the officials without the performance in all fields will come in large numbers. we should tap their potential to the full [inaudible]

improve the system for the officials and system for the management of we should strengthen and encourage important forked a vaning the cause of the people. we should respect word, knowledge, and pursue at the faster pace of the strategy of training competent personnel as a priority to build a [inaudible] and turn china from a country of large human resources in to one of a large pull of competent professionals to form internationally competitive personnel system capable of firing the creativity of

people. play a keel role in rallying and leading the people and implementing the party's series lying principle and policy carrying out the task. we should implement the system of responsibility for party building. carry out communities building in all areas, expand the coverage of fully -- and development [inaudible] and promote harmony. we should strengthen and improve education and encourage them to be vanguard role model. we should recruit better qualified people to the party and give [inaudible] young and intellectual to improve the competition of the party membership. and combating corruption and

promoting political integrity which is a major political issue. improve to the party. even collapse the party and the fall of the -- [inaudible] we must make our -- [applause] with the generation. promoting integrity. dreationz both the [inaudible] causes. and combining punishment and prevention and emphasis on the latter to prevent an all around way of combating corruption to

punishment and see to it that officials are punished and government is clean. and political integrity is upheld. we -- the education about combating corruption -- an improve the system of anticorruption law and effectively and more scientific way. we should rigorously [inaudible] accountability for improving party conduct and upholding integrity and conduct they are row investigation to major crurption -- corporation cases. [inaudible] without mercy. and [inaudible]

of the party is the source of the fundamental guarantee for the economic and social development. ethnic unity and progress and enduring peace and stability. party organization and party members and officials specially principle [inaudible] guideline -- guiding principle for the political activity and no one is allowed to play one self-with the organization. all -- must uphold the authority of the central committee with with the politically and inaction. and faithfully implement the party's serious lying principle and policy. who will enforce party in the [inaudible] the whole party from leadership to the advance great force.

>> for the [inaudible] moving forward. they must -- [inaudible] conviction and make more determined effort to accomplish the [inaudible] task of advancing organization. unifying the country in upholding the world peace and promoting common development. to live up to the people's trust -- the the whole party must be -- and prudent again the arrogance and -- [inaudible]

and remain. we must be innovative in our thinking about true and correct mistakes and always maintain energy and strife. we must uphold fundamental of the party, and rely on the people and put them above everything else. we must -- [inaudible] our sense of [inaudible] and -- and preserve the political integrity of [inaudible] the cause of socialism with the characteristic held great proposition of the future. and in successen hinges on continuous hard work of the generations of the young people. the whole party should care about young people, learn about what they have in mind, and encourage their growth and promote them. young people should respond to the party and foster a correct

world view of the life sense of value and cherish the country. that there is are useful -- [inaudible] socialism -- [applause] the success of the socialism is the chinese concreterred effort of the -- chinese nation. a common cause depends on unity and the [inaudible] all party members should improve their -- to ensure unity and

pursuing our common cause. and upheld the unit of the party. and strengthen the you knowty of all ethnic groups in chinese and the unity of all -- of the -- and the promote of the great unity of chips people and the people of the countries. let's hold high the -- [inaudible] closely around the political -- [inaudible] trying to complete the moderately prosperous society in all respect continue to win socialism chinese characteristic and make joint effort to [inaudible] [applause]

[applause] coming up on c-span2 defense secretary on issues affecting veterans returning to civilian life. that's followed by the discussion on the united states relationship with pakistan and later global health care issues. tonight at 8:00 at communicators with the chairman of u.s. telecom jeff gardener. he discusses a number of telecommunications issue with bloomberg reporter.

>> i'm committed to solving our fiscal challenges. but i refuse to accept any approach that isn't balanced. i am not going to ask students and seniors and middle class families to pay down the entire deficit while people like me, making over $250,000, aren't asked to pay a dime more in taxes. >> the newly-elected congress starts work in january, but the current congress still has work to do through the end of the year in what's typically referred to as a lame duck session. work is expected on the impending fiscal cliff, including the expiration of the bush era tax cut, the federal deficit, raising the debt ceiling and by how much, and planned cuts to domestic and military spending, also known as

sequestration. follow all the floor debates starting tooz at 2 p.m. d tuesday at 2 p.m. eastern and the senate on c-span2. >> federal agencies are closed today in observance of veterans day which was yesterday, november 11th. up next, a hearing looking at health care issues affecting members of the military when they return from combat. witnesses include defense secretary leon panetta. this is 90 minutes. >> chairman mckeon, chairman miller, ranking member smith and ranking member filner, dear former colleagues of mine, appreciate the opportunity to be here, and i also want to pay my respects to the members of both committees. this is a i unique event. it's an important event, and first and foremost, i want to thank all of the members of both the armed services and veterans

committee for the support that you provide the department of defense, our men and women in uniform and our veterans. you -- we could simply not do the work that needs to be done in protecting this country and in serving those that are warriors and their families. we just could not do it without the partnership that we have with all of you. and for that reason, let me just express my personal appreciation to all of you for your dedication and for your commitment to those areas. i also want to thank you for the opportunity to appear this morning alongside secretary shinseki. he is a great friend, a great public servant, great military leader and a great friend to me and to our nation's veterans. and i appreciate the opportunity to appear alongside of him. i'm pleased to have this chance to discuss the ways that the department of defense and the

department of veterans affairs are working together to try to meet the needs of our service members, our veterans and their families. this hearing comes at a very important time for our nation. and for collaboration between our two departments. dod and va are in the process of building an integrated military and veteran support system. it's something that should have been done a long time ago, but we are in the process of trying to make that happen. and develop a support system that's fundamentally different and a lot more robust than it's been in the past. today after a decade of war a new generation of service members, of veterans coming home our nation has made a lifetime commitment to them for their service and for their sacrifice, for their willingness to put their lives on the line for this

country. these men and women have shouldered a very heavy burden. they've been deployed, as you know, time and time and time again. they've fought battles in iraq, they've fought battles in afghanistan, they've been targeted by terrorists and by ieds, they've been deployed from kuwait to south korea, from the pacific to the middle east. many are dealing with serious wounds as well as with complex and difficult problems both seen and unseen. they've fought, and many have died to protect this country, and we need to fight to protect them. we owe it to those returning service members and to the veterans to provide them with a seamless support system so that they can put their lives back together. so that they can pursue their goals, so that they can not only

go back to their communities, but be able to give back to their communities. and to help strengthen our nation in many ways. none of this, none of this is easy. it takes tremendous commitment on the part of all americans; those in government, those in the military, it takes tremendous commitment on the part of those in the private sector, our business leaders and, frankly, all citizens across our country. there is no doubt that dod and va are working more closely together than we have before. but, frankly, we have much more to do. to try to reach a level of cooperation to better meet the needs of those who have served our nation in uniform, in uniform, especially our wounded warriors. since i became secretary a little over a year ago,

secretary shinseki and i have met on a regular basis in order to personally guide efforts to share resources and expand cooperation between our d.s. departments. the partnership between our departments extends to all levels. led by a joint committee cochaired by the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness and the deputy secretary of veterans affairs. senior military leaders have been deeply committed to this effort. this is, this is about the care of their troops, but it's also about recruiting and retaining the very best military force in the world. when it comes down to it, caring for those who have served and their families is not only a moral imperative, it is a national security imperative as well. for those who have fought for their nation, we need to protect

their care and their benefits, but we also need to protect their integrity and their honor. it's for that reason that before i discuss the specifics about dod and va collaboration, i want to announce an important step that my department is taking in order to help maintain the integrity of the awards and honors that are earned by our service members and their veterans. you're all aware of the supreme court decision that determined that free speech allows someone to lie about military awards and honors. free speech is one thing, but dishonoring those who have been honored on the battlefield is something else. for that reason today we are posting a new page on the defense department's web site that will list those service

members and veterans who have earned our nation's highest military awards for valor. initially, the web site will list the names of those who have earned the medal of honor since 9/11, but in the near term it will include the recipients of the services crosses and the silver star since 9/11. we'll look at expanding that information available on the web site over time. this effort will help raise public awareness about our nation's heroes and help deter those who might falsely claim military honors. which i know has been a source of great concern for many veterans and members of this, these committees and members of the congress. i want to thank you for your concerns and for your leadership on this issue, and our hope is that this will help protect the honor of those who serve the

united states in battle. now let me discuss the five priority areas that dod and va are trying to work on to enhance collaboration. the first is this transition program, the transition gps program. at the department of defense, our goal is to provide a comprehensive transition assistance program that prepares those who are leaving the service for the next step. whether that is pursuing additional education, whether it's trying to find a job in the public sector or the privacy sector -- private sector, or whether it's starting their own business. on monday the president announced the new transition gps program that will extend transition preparation through the entire span of each service member's military career. the program will insure that every service member develops their own individual transition plan, meets new career readiness

standards and is prepared to apply their valuable military experience however and wherever they choose. second area that we focused on is in trying to integrate the disability evaluation system. we've overhauled the legacy disability evaluation system in many trying to make improvements -- in trying to make improvements with regards to developing a new system. in the past, as you know, service members with medical conditions preventing them from doing their military jobs had to navigate separate disability evaluation systems at both dod and va. we've replaced that legacy system with a single, integrated disability evaluation system that enables our departments to work in tandem. under the new system currently in use, service members and veterans have to deal with fewer layers of bureaucracy, and they are able to receive va

disability compensation sooner after separating from the military. but let's understand as we try to do this, this is, this is a tough challenge to try to make this work in a way that can respond to our veterans effectively. after all, veterans have rights. they have the right to insure that their claims are carefully adjudicated, but at the same time we need to expedite the process. and to insure that as we do that, we protect their benefits. and that's what we're trying to do with this system. the third area is to try to integrate, as was pointed out, a new electronic health records system. we're working on a major initiative to try to do that. for too long efforts to achieve a real, seamless transition between our health care systems have been hamstrung by separate

legacy health records systems. in response to a challenge that was issued by the president and, frankly, presidents in the past who have tried to address this issue, dod and va is finally working steadily to build an integrated electronic health records system. when operational, that system will be the single source for service members and veterans to access their medical history and for clinicians to use that history at any dod and va medical facility. again, this is not easy. and so the way we're approaching it is to try to see if we can complete this process at two places, san antonio and hampton roads, and then try to expand it to every other hospital. it's tough, but if we can achieve this, it would be a very significant achievement that i think could be a model not only

for the hospitals that we run, but for hospitals in the private sector as well. fourthly, we need greater collaboration on mental and behavioral health. beyond these specific initiatives that i mention, we are trying to focus on enhancing collaboration in areas that involve some of the toughest challenges we face now related to mental and behavioral health. post traumatic stress has emerged as a signature unseen wound of this last decade of war. its impact will be felt for decades to come, and both the dod and va must, therefore, improve our ability to identify and treat this condition as well as all mental and behavioral health conditions. and to better equip our system to deal with the unique challenges these conditions can

present. for example, i've been very concerned about reports of problems with modifying diagnoses for post traumatic stress in the military disability evaluation system. many of these issues were brought to my attention by members of congress, and i appreciate their doing that. particularly the senate veterans affairs committee chairman patty murray who addressed this issue because it happened in her own state in a particular way. to address these concerns, i have directed a review across all of the uniform services. this review, led by the undersecretary of defense for persian mel and readiness -- personnel and readiness, will help insure that we are delivering on our commitment to care for our service members. the review will be analytically sound, it'll be action-oriented, and it will provide, hopefully, the least disruptive impact to behavioral health services for

service members. the effort here is to determine where those diagnoses take place, why they were downgrade canned downward -- downgraded downward, what took place so we know exactly what has happened. i hope that the entire review will be completed within approximately 18 months. the last area is an area that has really concerned me, which is the area of trying to prevent military suicides. we've strongly focused on doing what we can the try to deal with this issue which i've said is one of the most frustrating problems i have come across as secretary of defense. despite increased efforts and attention by both dod and va, the suicide trends among service members and veterans continues to move in a are troubling and tragic direction -- in a very troubling and tragic direction.

and part of it is reflective of the larger society. the fact is, numbers are increasing now within the military. in close cooperation with the va, dod is taking aggressive steps the to try to address this issue, including promoting a culture of -- to try to get people to seek help, seek the kind of help that they need to improve access to mental and behavioral health care, to emphasize mental fitness and can to work to -- and to work to better understand the issue of suicide with the help of other agencies including the va. one of the things i'm trying to stress is that we have got to improve the ability of leadership within the military to see these issues, to see them coming and to do something to try to prevent it from happening. our efforts to deliver the best possible services depend on the

dedication of our dod and va professionals. who work extremely hard every day on behalf of those who have served in uniform. and i extend my thanks to all who help support our men and women in uniform today, to our veterans and to our families. let me just say we are one family. we have to be one family. at the department of defense and department of veterans affairs. a family that supports one another and all those who have answered the call to defend our country. together we will do everything possible to insure that the bond between our two departments and between our country and those who have defended it only grows stronger in the future. let me also say this. as a former congressman, now as secretary of defense and someone who's spent over 40 years involved in government in some

capacity or another, i am well aware too often the very best intentions, very best intentions for caring for our veterans can get trapped in bureaucratic infighting, it gets trapped by conflicting rules and regulations, it gets trapped by frustrating levels of responsibility. this cannot be an excuse for not dealing with these issues. it should be a challenge for both the va and dod, for the congress and for the administration to try to meet that challenge together. our warriors are trained not to fail on the battlefield. we must be committed not to fail them on the home front. i realize that there have been a lot of good words and a lot of

goodwill and a lot of good intentions. but i can assure you that my interest is in results, not words. i'm grateful for the support of the congress and particularly these two committees, and i thank you and look forward to your questions. >> thank you, mr. secretary. you know, there's been comments made about how unique this is, to have this joint hearing between these two committees. it resulted from chairman miller coming to me with the idea, and i want to thank him for that. and i think it also happened because we had two such outstanding secretaries, both of whom are veterans, both of whom have devoted their life to service to this country. of secretary panetta, many years in congress, was here when i first came here and a couple of others of us that are still here, mr. barton and mr. filner.

we're the old, old people on this committee now. but you were taken from our midst over serve -- to serve the president as director of omb and then as his chief of staff, and then later as director of central intelligence agency and now as secretary of defense. i think that's a lifetime to be commended. and, secretary shinseki, starting with entrance into the united states military academy, lifetime of service in the army culminating as chief of staff of the army, no one could have a better career leading troops in battle and leading the entire army in start of this war against terrorism. thank you both for your service. mr. secretary? >> thank you, mr. chairman. chairman mckeon, chairman miller, ranking member smith, ranking member filner, other

distinguished members of both committees, the house armed services and house veterans affairs committees, thank you for your steadfast support of service members and veterans and for this opportunity to testify before you. i'm honored to be here with my friend as well, secretary leon panetta. his leadership and close partnership on behalf of those who wear and have worn the uniforms of our nation has been monumental. i'd also like to acknowledge i believe we have here and in other places veterans service organizations and veterans who are here today. i acknowledge you because with the vsos, their insights have been helpful in developing resourcing and improving the programs that we overwatch in the the president of veterans awares -- in the department of veterans affairs. i've said it often enough, and i'll say it one more time. little of what we do in va

originates in va. much of what we work on originates in dod. and so what this means is that we in va must be aware, must be agile and then must be fully capable of caring for those who have, in lincoln's words, borne the battle. as a footnote, we still today in va care for two children of civil war veterans. the promises of president abraham lincoln are being delivered today by president barack obama, this congress and the va. and 100 years from now, we'll still be fulfilling our commitment to the current generation of veterans, their families and our survivors. history also shows, and this is va's piece of history, also shows that our requirements in va continue to grow for about a decade and maybe sometimes a little more after the last combatant comes back from

operation. and so in this case about a decade or more after the last combatant leaves afghanistan, va's requirements will continue to grow. the operation will be over, and budgets will begin to reflect that, but at va our requirements will still be growing. so for us it's important that we spend the time now to better anticipate their needs for care, for benefits and for a successful transition to civilian life. for this current generation without losing sight of the needs of previous generations that we also care for. collaboration and cooperation between va and dod have never been more important, and i think for the next two decades it'll be with entirely important because this'll be in large measure the work of the nation and focusing on how we care for the less than 1% of americans who serve in uniform today and provide for us this way of life.

most significantly, we are looking for the -- initially here -- at four areas. three of those areas will match up with what secretary panetta just provided. that doesn't mean that in his five and my four we're disconnected, but we describe them just a little bit differently. the integrated electronic health record, the iehr, which you've remarked has been in the process of discussion for ten years now. i think both secretary panetta and i have agreed on what that will be, and we are moving towards a solution. the second point, more come prehencive sharing of data through a virtual lifetime electronic record of which that integrated electronic health record is the key component.

the third area of focus is the integrated disability evaluation system which is primarily a dod enterprise with significant va support to insure an efficient process. and the fourth of our, va's areas of focus, the president's initiative to redesign the transition process and the implementation of the hire heroes act. my testimony submitted to the committees expands on these areas in some detail, and thank the chairman for accepting that written testimony into the record, and i won't go to them in detail at this time. let me briefly emphasize that it's especially important that we assure the greatest collaboration between va and dod in that critical phase before service members leave the military. we simply must transition them better, and i speak as one who's watched that process from a

different vantage point over time. we do this best with warm handoffs between the departments. that's key to preventing, to assuring the success of transitioning service members back to their communities in productive ways. but it's also key in preventing the downward spiral that some face in being challenged, transitioning doesn't work quite as well for them, and in some cases homelessness and sometimes suicide are what we have to deal with. so i echo secretary panetta's comments here. while we're pleased with the progress made to date on critical issues common to both va and dod, we know we have a responsibility to better harmonize our two departments in ways that better serve service members, families, veterans and our survives. their well being is the

strongest justification of why we should be working together more closely and more collaboratively, and we are today. there's more important work to be done, and i'm proud to move forward with secretary panetta to make the most progress possible in our time on behalf of those who wear and have worn the uniforms of our nation. and with that, mr. chairman, thank you. and to the members of this committee for your unwavering support of our efforts. and i look toward to your -- look forward to your questions. >> thank you very much. i ask unanimous consent to include the record of all member statements into the record. without objection, so ordered. we've already agreed that we will have two minute questions, so i would encourage members to make their questions short so that we can have the answers complete, and we will start with me. as i've already said, we know that there's high unemployment

among our veterans, our young veterans, and we know that with the 487 billion cut in defense we will have 100,000 leaving the military, we will have another 100,000 if the sequestration takes effect. how do you see potential reduction in the defense work force resulting from the sequestration? what effect will that have on -- what will you be able to do to try to move them into some meaningful employment? mr. secretary? >> well, i sure as hell hope that sequestration doesn't happen. >> i'm with you. >> it would be, as i've said time can and time again, a disaster in terms of the defense department, as far as our budget is concerned and as far as our ability to respond to the

threats that are out there. and it would have a huge impact. it cuts, it doubles the cuts in the military, would obviously add another 100,000 that would have to be reduced, and the impact of that on top of the reductions that are currently going to take place would place a huge burden on the systems to be able to respond to that. i think it'd be near impossible to try to do the kind of work that we're trying to do and make it work effectively. i think we can handle what we've proposed in our budget and the drawdown numbers that are coming now. we've tried to, we've tried to do this pursuant to a rational strategy over these next five years, and i think the systems we are working on and what we're trying to put in place i'm confident can respond to that. but if sequester should happen and if an additional burden is suddenly put on top of it, i think it could really strain the

systems. >> mr. secretary, could you, please, give us that input for the record? >> absolutely. >> and in keeping with it, my time has expired. mr. miller? >> both secretaries, in 1961 john f. kennedy said we'd put a man on the moon, eight years later america was there. we're talking about an integrated electronic health record by 2017. why could we put a man on the moon in eight years, and -- we're not starting from ground zero with the lek -- electronic health record. why is it taking so long? because it is so vital, especially secretary shinseki, to solving the backlog issue that exists in regards to disability claims. >> mr. chairman, i, i can't account for the previous ten

years. i do know there's a history here. but let me just suggest that two large departments each having their own electronic health record which happened to be two very good, maybe the two best electronic health records in the country, and trying to bring that culture together to say we're going to have one, and it's entirely possible -- and i agree with you, it's not technology, it's leadership here between secretary panetta and i we have in the last year met five times, four times. we're going to meet again here in december, we're testifying here together. i think this is a great signal to both our departments. prior to that i recall meeting with secretary gates four or five times. so in 7 months the two secretaries of these two largest

departments have sat side by side on direct communication issues like this with the integrateed health record being the topic of discussion. it's taken us 17 months to get to an agreement that both secretary panetta and i have signed that describes the way forward. and the way forward for us is a single, joint, common, integrated health record. each of those words means something. but key here is an agreement that it will be open in architecture, nonproprietary in design. that is a significant change from previous discussions which were wrapped around which proprietary contractor were we going to be interested in in establishing an arrangement with. i believe that was part of the challenge. the fact that we have agreed on a concept, i think, is

groundbreaking here, and both secretary panetta and i have agreed to move forward on this. >> thank you very much. gentleman's time has expired. again, if you could complete the record on those questions, that would be good. mr. smith? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to ask a question about the t.a.p. program, following up on some of the comments mr. filner made. exit interviews are notoriously difficult to get people interested in the. and i think the problem is they're moving on, i met with folks in both your offices that showed me how we find the program, they used to have a book this big, now it's this big. what are your thoughts on what you can do to get the service members to pay attention to the two or three most important things in that? it strikes me that we're overwhelming them, eyes glade over. what are the critical pieces of information that you want to give them? how can we make that work better? >> i'll yield to secretary

shinseki as well on this. you know, i remember when i got out of the service, i couldn't wait to get the hell out of there, and i didn't really want to spend a lot of time having people tell me, you know, what i was or was not going to do. in this instance i think the best way to try to bring these opportunities to the anticipation of members is the counselors. we're assigning individual counselors as part of this individual transition program. they are going to sit down with them individually. i think that's the best way to get their attention and get them moving with regards to the potential benefits that are or available to them. >> just very quickly, i would echo secretary panetta here. i know that when i got ready to get out of the military, i couldn't wait to get the hell out of there either. [laughter] i would just say if we look at this as a transition assistance program and the focus is on assistance, i think we come at it with a little different attitude.

if we look at this as an education responsibility of preparing folks for at least the next phase of their lives, to make the right decision whether it's education, whether it's work choice and certainly from the va's point of view we are entirely interested in getting as many departing service members enrolled with us. whether or not they have a requirement for health care today, having them enrolled in five or ten years down the road when issues crop up, we have, we have the evidence necessary to be able to dole with. so we need to look at this as more than just assistance, but making them career ready for the next phase of their lives. >> thank you very much, gentlemen. >> thank you. mr. filner. >> thank you. you know n a democracy where you need, obviously, the support and vote of people to go to war, the

cost of war is a pretty important item to understand, and treating our veterans is, obviously, part of the cost of war, should be considered that. i have tried on several occasions to add an amendment to any war recommendations 5-20% surcharge for veterans. and, of course, we've been borrowing the money for war, but no one wants to borrow any money for veterans. we have the statistics, so about 6,000 killed in action and 5,000 since 9/11. and almost 50,000 wounded. and yet those who have showed up at the va for help -- and i know there are different definitions and different circumstances -- i think it's close to what could be over a million. why is there such a disparity between -- and it's important for the public to understand, what is the cost of war? how do you account for a million veterans seeking for problems --

[inaudible] and only 50,000 considered casualties? mr. panetta, we'll go for you first. since you know how to manipulate the two minutes, you're looking at him, i know, so you don't have to answer. [laughter] >> well, it clearly is the impact of war over the last ten years and how it's affected those who have served. and when they do return, when they come back, the reality is that, you know, that not all of them, not all of them are getting the kind of care and went fits that -- benefits that they should get. and it's our responsibility to try to respond to those needs as they return. this -- look, this system's going to be overwhelmed. you know, let's not kid anybody.

we're looking at a system that's already overwhelmed. the likelihood is as we draw down further troops and, you know, as we over these next five years assuming sequester doesn't happen, we are still going to to be -- you know, they're going to be adding another per 100,000 per year. and the way to be able to respond to that in a way that effectively deals with the health carish shies, with the benefits issues, that is not going to an easy challenge. and, you know, the costs, you talked about the costs of war, this is an inherent hi part of the cost of war. also also dealing with the veterans who return, and that is going to be a big ticket item if we're going to do this right. >> i just hope you'll look at that as a way to really get that that issue. >> mr. bartlett. >> thank you.

by almost every count, we're failing our veterans. more of them are killing themselves than are killed by the enemy in afghanistan, and the suicide rate is increasing. may take more than a year for them to get that disability. secretary panetta, you mentioned that you hoped an 18-month review could be completed on time. i would suggest, though, that that does not reflect the sense of you urgency that this challee requires. what do we need to do in the

congress to address this problem? >> you know, i think that the one thing i've seen is that all of us share the same concern with regards to our ability to respond to these issues. the challenge is that as we try to make these systems work, there is a lot of built-in resistance to adapting and changing the way we do things. and to the extent that we can work together to try to make sure that we push for these changes to take place and do it in this a way that effectively responds to the challenges, that's something i think both

the congress as well as the administration have to push. we cannot accept the old way of doing things. things are going to have to change, be modified, people are going to have to respond differently. if we expect the same old responses to the problems we're having, then we're going to have the same old problems. we have got to change the way people respond to these issues. >> thank you. mr. reyes. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you, secretaries, for being here. first of all, i wanted to thank both of you, because you have put your personal leadership in areas that have never been done before. the issue of women have been very important to both of you in the military both in terms of sexual harassment and attacks and those kinds of things. secretary panetta, you've been a stalwart there.

and, secretary shinseki, your leadership in prioritizing homelessness among veterans, especially among women veterans, is very much appreciated. i can, i can tell you because veterans very much appreciate those priorities and your personal leadership in that. so i know both of you face immense challenges, but reflecting on what chairman miller said, i hope we continue to do these kinds of joint hearings, because this truly is an important, i think one of the most important things that both of these committees can focus in. just echoing what my chairman, chairman bartlett said, can you, can each of you comment briefly on where we can be most helpful in terms of, as a congress

especially from these two committees? >> i can speak on the va piece of this. actually, the congress has already provided some significant assistance to va. i would recall in '08 and '09 our budgets were enhanced by congress. since then you've provided us advanced appropriations. not all agree that it was a good move, but for va it provided us an opportunity to have a two-year look at our budgets. and what it assured is that for the health care piece of our budget every year on 1 october whether or not there's a continuing resolution, we are able to fund our health care requirements and so that veterans, will isn't a gap in care -- there isn't a gap in care for veterans. and in those ways meaningful

support has been provided. i would also say that we are dealing with issues that grow over time, and some of them very quickly. mental health, ptsd. the budgeting process is based on knowing requirements well out and methodically reacting to growth and trend. when you have large growth in a short period of time, the budget process is not quite as agile. and it's a bit reactive. and so our efforts to try to harmonize, the reason that we are here is to that va has some -- is so that va has some good ideas on what to expect and be able to put that into our budgeting process. >> thank you. mr. bilirakis. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i appreciate it very much. thank you, secretary panetta and secretary shinseki. you both mentioned in your testimony the prevalence of ptsd

and tbi, and i believe we need more research in diagnostic tools and treatments. through what channels are the dod, va and the private sector sharing their research findings and collaborating on the direction of future research? >> i would just offer in 2009 the dod and va held its first mental health summit, a joint effort to bring our mental health programs to the same table and have a discussion. 28 strategic findings that came out of that. those findings we continue to execute today. while it was a broad look, inside that discussion were issues on ptsd, tbi. we spent about $30 million in the va budget on research for

ptsd. we learn a lot from dod because they have extensive experience in this area in terms of diagnosis and dealing with ptsd with formations, with people in formations in combat, going back to combat. so there is much that we learn from our collaboration with dod through our research. um, more to be done, to be sure. >> let me add, i mean, what we try to do is to do mental health assessments both before and after deployments so that we can identify and try to treat somebody who might have a problem, specifically with ptsd. we've done about 600,000 of these assessments. our greatest limitation, our greatest limitation is the number of care providers is simply not sufficient for the

demand. and we are competing with va and with private health care systems to hire these people. but that is a real, that's a real -- that's an area of tremendous need in order to address the amount of problems we're facing. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. and i want to thank you both for your service and for both being here this morning. quick question, and i want to read from a veterans' service organization letter that that they actually sent to senator webb just last week. and just part of it that says the only branch of the military to show a marked improvement decreasing the number of persons taking their own lives the united states marines. they should also be praised for their active leadership from the very top in the addressing the problem and implementing the solutions. the remaining services have yet to be motivated to take any

substantive action. secretary panetta, i've been to iraq and afghanistan several times, and i've looked the generals in the eye and ask them what are they doing personally to help destigmatize tbi,ptsd, and the second question is do they need any help. i get the same answer over there as i do here in d.c., everything's okay, we got all the resources we need, we don't need any help. but the interesting thing is some of the much lesser rank came up to me after i asked the generals that question outside and said we need a lot more help. and he suggested i talk to the clergy to find out what they are seeing happening. and i did that trip and every trip since then. and i'm finding that our service members are not getting the help that they need. and my question, particularly after looking at this letter that was sent to senator webb,

it appears the marines are doing a good job. so why is it so different between the marines, the army and other branches, and can you address that? >> you know, obviously, there's no silver bullet here, i wish there were, to try to deal with suicide prevention. we have a new suicide prevention office that's trying to look at programs to try to address this terrible epidemic. we are looking at just -- if you look at the numbers, recent totals are we've got about 104 confirmed, 102 pending investigation in 2012. the total is as high as 206, almost one a day that we're seeing. that is an epidemic, something's wrong. i think one of the areas, i mean, look, part of that, part of this is people are inhibited because they don't want to get the care that they probably need. so that's part of the problem,

is trying to get the help that's necessary. two, to give them access to the kind of care that they need. but, three -- and, again, i stress this because i see this in a number of other areas dealing with good discipline and good order and trying to make sure that our troops are responding to the challenges -- it is the leadership in the field. it's the platoon commander, it's the platoon sergeant, it's the company commander, it's the company sergeant. the ability to look at their people, to see these problems, to get ahead of it and to be able to insure that when you spot the problems, you're moving that individual to the kind of assistance that they need in order to prevent it. the marines stay in close touch with their people. that's probably one of the reasons that, you know, the marines are doing, doing a good job. but what we're stressing in the other services is to try to develop that training of the command so that they, too, are

able to respond to these kinds of challenges. >> thank you. mr. thornberry. >> thank you. secretary panetta, um, there was a cover story on military suicides in "time" magazine within the past couple weeks, and some statistics really jumped out at me. one fact they said is that 33% of military suicides had never deployed overseas at all. and 43% had been deployed once. that's 76%, if you add it together. i'm wonder, number one, are those statistics accurate and, number two, what does that tell us about the problem if a third of all the suicides -- we're focused so much on the ptsd and so forth, if they've never deployed at all, a third of the suicides, maybe we're not looking at all the factors. >> those numbers are accurate as far as we know. and i think what your seeing is is -- what you're seeing is that it reflects the larger problem

in society. the fact is that suicides are on the increase in the rest of the society as well. so problems with drinking, problems with finances, problems within the family, problems, you know, of trying to deal with the conflicts that they're confronting, problems of dealing with just the general pressures that we are seeing in a society that's dealing, obviously, with economic pressures at the same time it's dealing with social pressures. all of that is impacting on families. and that's true in the military as well. and that's why we're seeing this occur not just from those that are deployed to battlefield, but we're seeing it with regards to families that are here. >> well, it just seems to me that puts a little different perspective on the scope of the issues that both you gentlemen have to deal with, if it's not just combat, but the entire gamut of those problems. thank you, i yield back. >> thank you.

mr. secretary, do you know if there's any correlation between this age group in the military committing suicide and those not in the military but of the same age group committing suicide? >> mr. chairman, an important question. the cdc publishes every year the top ten leading causes of death amongst americans, and as i recall the last report, it's a continuous track between age groups 15 -- in the age group 15-24, suicides is the third leading cause of death, in the top ten, of americans. in the age group 25-34, it's the second leading cause of death. and so suicides are, a national discussion here. and when you recruit out of that population and put youngsters through the stresses we all are familiar with in combat, very small percentage serve in

uniform, um, yes, suicides become a matter of great focus, interest and importance to both secretaries. i guess the follow-on question is how do we try to decide who are best suited to serve in the recruiting effort. but i no longer have those responsibilities. i used to at one time. >> thank you. ms. sanchez. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you, gentlemen, again for being before us today. in preparing for this hearing, i asked my staff back in the orange county to go through the casework we have with respect to veterans in transition. and although we have a great relationship with our va hospital in long beach and we have two clinics, one in santa ana and one in anaheim in our district, the reality is that the most troublesome area with respect to these cases involve the quality and the lack of health care for our service members who are transitioning

from active or having been called up and now out into the veteran world, if you will. and, in fact, i have a lot of veterans who come to my office and, um, they express real concern about not receiving treatment or being, or having a long time to wait for a specialty doctor, for example. in long beach it would be oncology where we must be short staffed or something of the sort. and the other really big concern for them is the issue of being prepped up for a surgery and then somebody on the surgery team doesn't show up out of whatever, and the surgery's then postponed. and it isn't until these people come to my office and we call them directly that we're able to get that rescheduled. so my question is how are you addressing these types of concerns with respect to health care, and why is a surgery scheduled, why aren't people showing up to be on that surgery team? and more importantly, why does

it take a congressional office to call to ask that it be rescheduled? >> all fair questions, congresswoman. if you would give me the details, i'm more than happy to research both your frustration and mine. we owe veterans better, and i agree with you. >> um, my second question is with respect to homelessness. we have a lot of great organizations helping us with that but we're low on funds. is there any grant program coming up for something like that for local 501(c)(3)s to help? >> we have provided grant to the -- grants for the past two years. two years ago about $60 million worth of grants were provided under the support of services to veterans' families fund. just recently announced this year's investment of $100

million and in the '13 budget we have a request for an increase to that investment as well. >> thank you so much, mr. secretary. >> mr. stutzman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to both of you gentlemen for being here today. the president has announced the new model of the t.a.p. program. as we understand it, everyone will be require today attend a one-day dod preseparation class followed by three-day employment workshop and a one-day va benefits briefing. other training in nonjob seeking such as determining readiness for postsecondary education and entrepreneurship will be offered as voluntary and not subject to the mandatory provisions of law. this is hardly a tailored approach that would meet the needs of those who is intentions are to go to school or start a business. offering nonemployment-related instruction as voluntary ignores the fact that it is difficult

enough to get supervisors to allow service members to attend the current three-and-a-half-day course, much less accept or eight -- seven or eight days away from the unit, especially if that unit is preparing to deploy. will you make all eight days of t.a.p. mandatory? >> i think we've got to move in that direction. we're going to -- you know, we're doing nine pilots that are basically going to test this out, and can we're hoping to complete -- and we're hoping to complete those pilots by november and learn, you know, just exactly what we have to require, how do we have to mandate it, how we have to revise it. but, you know, my sense is the only way it works is if you make it mandatory. >> the model that the marine corps is using, um, in giving the options to those who are ability -- about to discharge, is that a model that is worth looking at as well? >> i would think so.

>> it seems like that'd give a lot of flexibility. not every service member's going to be coming out planning on just going into the work force. >> that's right. some of them will want to stay. >> absolutely. thank you, i'll yield back. >> mr. walds. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'd like to thank both chairmans and the ranking members for making this happen. i've talked seamless transition for most of my adult life, and it appears like it's happening, so i thank you. and to both of you, you have my deepest gratitude and the 1st district for the defense of this nation and the care of our veterans. i've got kind of a tough one here, the issue that came out of the 26,000 soldiers discharged under personality disorders. my question is, and it's brought by the fact of the study at yale law school about what are we doing about that. and my question probably to you, secretary panetta, is what are we doing to review and correct the records of those veterans who may have been improperly

discharged with a personality disorder diagnosis? >> we're conducting a completereview of those areas. we responded to the situation that took place up at, in washington, and that was the focus of the gao report, and that's what concerned us a great deal. and as a result of that, we're not only running a review there, we're running a review elsewhere to make sure that the same kind of problems have not occurred elsewhere. you know, it's important that we determine why someone would get this diagnosis, and then it would be downgraded. i mean, there may be some legitimate reasons for it, but in this instance it happened to too many people, and that raised tremendous concern. >> do i appreciate that sentiment. because my concern, i'm sure like yours and now secretary shinseki's, is that one of the biggest problems here is not benefits