Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-12-13-Speech-3-019"
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"en.20001213.1.3-019"2
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"Madam President, Mr Simpson, I can assure you both that it is certainly not my intention to decimate the postal services. Quite the reverse, in fact: I intend to make them more effective, and Mr Ferber’s report is not a sound proposal in my opinion. Some of my colleagues do not share my opinion on a number of scores, as will become evident in due course.
I thought the Commission’s proposal was a sound one. It represents an important step towards an internal market, and is important for consumers and companies who use those postal services, but we closed the door on it. At this rate, we will need 100 years to bring about an open market for postal services in Europe. Mr Simpson, your predictions have, as far as I can tell, not materialised in Sweden, although that country operates an open-market system. The same holds true for the Netherlands, and when I talk face to face with other people from postal companies, they do not express these concerns either. I therefore assume that you are only voicing half-truths and saying what you like to hear.
I have tabled an amendment. At the very least, that will give us an end date. I believe that my amendment is gradual and controlled. It is not as ambitious as I would have liked, but I feel it is a sound compromise. We are now facing a peculiar situation, really. Although we go along with the postal monopolies, I notice that the German postal services are floating their company on the stock exchange, the Mecca of capitalism, and advertising in the Belgian newspapers to sell their shares because they are a profitable company. And where do these profits originate from? A monopoly. I have noticed that the Royal Mail has shares in a postal company in Sweden because over there, it can compete within an open market. But I ask you: would a Swede be able to compete in Britain? No. This is the type of situation which we want to avoid. In this case, we are on the same side as big business. They have literally laid down the law. It is a hypocritical situation, if you ask me, because these companies now have a finger in all sorts of pies and are paving the way for the free market. They are doing this very actively. They are restructuring and are making people redundant, Mr Simpson, even though they are monopolies, and I believe we are protecting those interests. We have turned the safety net for post users into a hammock for those large postal companies where they can carry on doing what they are now getting away with. I object to this practice and will vote against it."@en1
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