Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-27-Speech-3-150"
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"en.19991027.5.3-150"2
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"Mr President, let me first of all support the point made by the EPP Group that this debate deals primarily with one company in one Member State and that it is therefore not an appropriate topic for the EU institutions to deal with. In any case Michelin is facing a competitive challenge which absolutely requires it to raise productivity and that means lay-offs. I understand there has been concern about a bicycle tyre factory. But Michelin can import bicycle tyres for half the cost of production in France. No company can go on in those circumstances. The question is, do we want Europe to be a bicycle tyre economy or a modern high-tech economy.
More generally I want to challenge an idea which is prevalent in this House, especially in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. There is an assumption that we can save jobs and enhance employment prospects by discouraging companies from laying-off workers who are no longer needed. This idea may seem plausible but it is wholly mistaken and counterproductive. If we keep jobs on life support when they are past their sell-by dates, we damage productivity and make European industry less competitive. We keep workers in loss-making situations where they destroy value, rather than freeing them up to take up new jobs in profitable industries where they can create wealth.
Under the Anglo-Saxon model with flexible labour markets workers frequently lose their jobs but it does not matter because they quickly get new ones.
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Under the inflexible sclerotic European social model we struggle to keep workers in failing businesses and when they finally lose their jobs they may well be unemployable. This is why Europe has much higher unemployment and much higher long-term unemployment that the USA.
Finally, we should remember that governments do not create jobs, European institutions do not create jobs; businesses create jobs. Our task, as regulators, is to create an environment in which businesses and jobs can prosper. We should not be asking industry to deliver social protection objectives. Let us have governments deal with social security and leave industry free to create wealth and jobs."@en1
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