Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-04-12-Speech-3-303"
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"en.20000412.11.3-303"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it has to be said that the European Commission’s current strategy for bringing about the actual realisation and improvement of the internal market has already been the subject of debate in this House on quite a number of occasions. This ongoing discussion process is now encapsulated in the report by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, and I would like to thank her very much for this work, particularly as I am aware that it is often a thankless and less than exciting task to have to work on existing projects. One tends only to make the headlines when one brings new ventures in to the world.
Finally, I have a request to make of Commissioner Bolkestein. We gathered from the Commission’s statement on the Echelon case that, in at least one Member State of our Union (I suspect it is not the only one and that this applies to several) secret services undertake activities with the aim, as permitted under national law, of protecting the economic well-being of a nation, a Member State that is. I believe it would be worth looking at these legal provisions in the light of the fact that we have an internal market and a common European economy, i.e. a common European economic area.
However, we must not discard the internal market as if it were an old hat. The introduction of the euro has already brought all the shortcomings of the internal market into sharper relief and it will accentuate them even more clearly in the future. Any failing on the part of the internal market weakens Europe economically and in terms of its credibility vis-à-vis the citizens. If it helps to give the internal market project renewed impetus then we should in fact welcome the new packaging that the Commission has come up with, even if it appears slightly over-contrived and complicated for my taste on many issues.
It is important to get the proposed measures underway quickly. In common with Mr Harbour, I believe that in adopting the common position Parliament has made an important contribution to electronic commerce.
The Council has been dilatory in many areas. I am thinking mainly of such fundamental draft directives as those pertaining to “copyright in the information society”, “distance selling”, and “financial services”, where we have already been kept waiting for the common position for a very long time.
If we want to bring the internal market closer to the citizens and make it relevant to their lives, then we should also give the same amount of attention to all issues connected with it. We will only strengthen the internal market and enable it to function at long last if issues such as consumer protection, employment policy, social security, taxation policy, environmental protection and regional policy are included in the debate from the outset, rather than being regarded as incompatible. To this end, we have taken the liberty of tabling a number of amendments supplementary to Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi’s report."@en1
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