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I'm delighted to co-chair with Peter Levene
the World Economic Forum in Europe in Brussels.
I'm delighted to have this opportunity and we’re looking forward
to discussing a number of key issues.
I guess the first is the obvious one, it’s the economy,
and we’re looking for stronger growth in Western Europe in particular
to counterbalance the growth that we’re seeing in Asia, Latin America, Africa,
and the Middle East and most interestingly, already in the first quarter of this year
the turnaround that we’ve seen in the United States.
We don’t want Europe, Western Europe in particular, to fall behind.
So the first point is the strength of the European economy,
particularly the western European economy.
The second big issue is sustainability and the varied issues that we as heads
of companies have in terms of corporate social responsibility
or corporate responsibility and making sure that we take forward some
of the progress we made in Copenhagen, not enough clearly,
but these issues of climate, social issues, environmental issues,
critical issues that we have to make further progress on.
And the third area, last but not least, is given the fact
that we have new representation for Europe, is ensuring that Europe as a whole
has a significant role in geo-political issues and security issues around the world.
Clearly with this new leadership we’ll be looking for improved visibility
and improved involvement both with the west and the east and the south,
by the south I mean the growing power and influence of Latin America
as well as the growing power and influence of Asia, of the Middle East, and of course Africa.
So Europe as a force on the geopolitical and security stage.
So there are high hopes for our conference in Brussels and the World Economic Forum
coming to Europe and we look forward to engaging with you on this.
A final plea from somebody who’s trying to run a major global company
and that is to reduce the bureaucracy and burden and regulation
that we see not only at a national level but also at a European level too.
We have to streamline government just as the political parties are saying
in front of the UK election here in London and elsewhere in the UK at this time.
So reducing the regulatory burden I think is a critical issue for those of us
who are trying to run private enterprises.
We look forward to seeing you in Brussels.