11 September 2013 Last updated at 06:25 ET
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Barroso's state of union: EU must not delay reforms
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The head of the European Union's executive has warned
that the bloc must not ease off on reform as growth edges back to the economy.
In his annual state of the union address, Jose Manuel
Barroso said there was "no way back to business as usual".
"The recovery is within sight," he said, but
warned it was fragile and that political leaders must "keep up our
efforts".
He urged the eurozone to press ahead with the creation of a
banking union.
Mr Barroso, president of the European Commission, said the union
must complete the project to "make sure that taxpayers are no longer in
the front line to pay" when banks failed.
The European Parliament is expected to vote on Thursday this
week on legislation establishing the first pillar of the banking union - oversight
of the eurozone's biggest banks by the European Central Bank.
However, other elements of the banking union are proving
harder to establish because of opposition by some governments.
Speaking in Strasbourg, Mr Barroso said all the EU's
economic efforts must be focused on growth, because that was necessary to
remedy "today's most pressing problem: unemployment".
He said the level of unemployment - 26 million people across
the union - was "economically unsustainable, politically untenable,
socially unacceptable".
'Stand by Ukraine'
On Syria, he said "a strong response" was needed
to the use of chemical weapons, and called the proposal for Syria to hand over
its stockpiles "potentially a positive development".
He implicitly criticised Russia for putting pressure on
former Soviet states to reject the European Union and align with Moscow
instead.
Armenia recently announced it would be joining Russia's
customs union despite long talks aimed at bringing it closer to the EU. Moldova
and Georgia are reportedly under pressure to do the same, and the EU is
especially concerned about the biggest country in the region, Ukraine.
"Today, countries like Ukraine are more than ever
seeking closer ties to the European Union, attracted by our economic and social
model. We cannot turn our back on them. We cannot accept any attempt to limit
these countries' own sovereign choices," Mr Barroso said.
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