Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-15-Speech-1-087"
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"en.19991115.7.1-087"2
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"Mr President, without a doubt the European Parliament plays an important role in many significant issues concerning social awareness, but it must be said that particularly here, Parliament has played a forceful role in this directive.
Mr Ghilardotti described the facts. I should just like to make four basic points on the issue of the Community directive. This proposed Community directive is a framework which will enable us to adjust to industrial change. It is an essential political framework which will enable us to welcome this inevitable change in a socially acceptable way. In the last discussion we held in this Chamber on the Michelin case, I had said that such changes are by no means a smooth operation since we are living in an age of major restructuring, technological advances, changes in the work place, and expanding globalisation. We must therefore prepare ourselves to welcome this change at a social level.
The next point I would like to make is that in this age of restructuring, Europe has been generally successful. It has the internal market, which is deepening day by day, and it has Monetary Union, which is widening day by day. Now, the time has come for Europe to prove its social dimension. Thus, this directive is indeed a very important political choice. It was proposed following some three years of dialogue in April with the social partners and in November 1998 it was proposed both in Parliament and in the Council. Parliament reacted with the resolution and the 35 amendments. A year on, however, the Council has not even considered this directive.
As far as the amendments are concerned, the Commission accepts nine of them, seven of them are in principle acceptable, but we did not make further progress and I would like to explain why. Under the Finnish Presidency, which as you know is responsible for pushing forward directives and planning the six-month period, a strategy was announced in the Employment and Social Affairs Committee. This strategy envisaged the first ballot on the European company statute directive to be followed by the ballot on the directive on consultation and information. Reasoning that if the directive we are discussing today were to come first, then the ballot on the employment directive, which as you all know has been on the table for discussion for more than 14 years now, would become extremely complicated.
The Finnish Presidency’s strategy was for there to be a discussion on the issue of the European company statute. However, the directive we are discussing today did not make it to the negotiating table and I would like to reply to Ms Ghilardotti’s question regarding what issues are still controversial and what issues are still giving rise to disagreement among the national representatives. Firstly, the companies’ personnel threshold should be higher than the one we have been discussing for consulting and informing. In my opinion, the issue of small and medium-sized businesses must be treated separately. The situation regarding small and medium-sized businesses is different, but of course, there must be a threshold higher than the one we have been discussing. The threshold of 50 people had been suggested. I repeat that this is a major topic of discussion and there have been many differences of opinion over it. The second issue concerns what is actually meant by the term ‘consultation and information’. There were some dissenting opinions which depended largely on the differing state of affairs in various Member States and, in many cases, on the political viewpoints we adopt. The third issue concerns the degree of self-reliance and the terms of agreement between the social partners in each Member Sate and how far they can go. The final issue is that of sanctions.
Those issues are to a greater or lesser extent still open. The question at present is what we will have to do and how we will have to proceed in order to achieve the desired result. And the desired result is for us to be able to vote for such a directive as soon as possible. It is not important for us to have a particularly sound directive on the table for discussion. What is important is that we create the right framework with set preconditions and that it is voted for so that it can enter into force.
So, what is the timetable and what does the Commission propose to do hereafter? Firstly, we are awaiting the completion of the Finnish Presidency’s term of office and to see if there will be some final agreement on the issue concerning the European company statute. If there is no result at the end of the year, I intend to propose a new strategy to the Portuguese Presidency, a different approach to the issue and a different basis for negotiations so that we can make quicker headway with the directive in question, and, as soon as we have the Council’s initial reaction, proceed with this new approach
which, in my view, is quite a straightforward one. It is not difficult for us to readjust the proposal based on the amendments accepted so far and then to refer this to the Council. I believe, however, that under the Portuguese Presidency we must adopt a very different approach from the largely unsuccessful one adopted under the existing Presidency, and proceed in the way I prescribed before."@en1
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