European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in Strasbourg on Tuesday that European Union (EU) member states needed coordinated measures in order to prevent an economic crisis.
"We need to apply the same methods in real economy as we did successfully when the financial crisis exploded. We need to find clear principles and have coordinated measures at EU level," he told a plenary session of the European Parliament.
"The key point is to have coordination between all the EU member states together with EU institutions."
Barroso stressed the importance of limiting impacts of the financial crisis on EU citizens by adopting timely, targeted temporary measures.
The first priority of the European Commission's 2009 work programme would be growth and jobs, said Barroso.
He said the EU needed a budgetary policy to promote demand, to make use of synergies of member states and to avoid negative spill-over effects of the financial crisis.
He asked the European Parliament to approve rapidly the commission's proposals on recapitalization of banks, deposit guarantees and regulation of credit rating agencies.
"We are going through exceptional times, and that calls for exceptional measures," he said.
The commission, the executive body of the EU, would adopt concrete measures in 2009 to consolidate the regulatory framework of the financial sector in the EU.
Barroso, at the same time, warned that the financial crisis should not undermine the EU's other priorities, such as climate change and sustainable development. He asked EU member states for agreement on key climate change goals by December 2008 and called for a global agreement in Copenhagen in December 2009.
The commission in January proposed a package of measures to reach so-called 20-20-20 EU energy policy targets: a 20-per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions against the 1990 levels, a 20-per cent share for renewable in final energy consumption and a 20-per cent saving in future energy by the year 2020.
The commission wants the adoption and rapid implementation of the measures. But the package needs to be agreed by the decision- making Council of Ministers and the European Parliament in the coming weeks.
Climate change remained a priority of the European Commission in 2009, said Barroso. He said the current crisis could become an opportunity to transform EU's economy into a low-carbon one through innovation.
Barroso also set as priorities in 2009 social policies and EU's external relations.
2009 is the last year of the current European Commission in office.
Barroso hailed the Group of 20 (G20) Summit in Washington as a new era in global economics. "G20 marks a new era in collective steering of the global economy."
He said the Washington Summit laid the foundation for new global governance based on the principle of a world socialist market economy, which the EU is spearheading.
If the EU has played an important role in the G20 and got itself heard, that was because the EU was united, he said. No individual country can get out of the financial crisis alone.