Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-15-Speech-4-122"
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"en.20010215.4.4-122"2
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".
The Bullmann report on preparations for the forthcoming European Council meeting in Stockholm has just been rejected in Parliament, and quite rightly too, for I feel the European Commission’s proposals, and the preparatory work within the parliamentary Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, are characterised by a authoritarian and plan-based mentality that runs counter to the spirit of Lisbon.
Immediately following the Lisbon Council, in March 2000, I endorsed the new working method, the new “open” method of coordination suggested by the Council, thinking that it might help to reduce the number of European regulations, which are, by definition, centralised and authoritarian, and to favour arrangements “between equals” that were less restrictive and more likely to adapt flexibly to suit the needs of each party while respecting their freedom to make their own decisions.
Yet the Commission is now proposing to introduce an arsenal of 28 structural indicators, plus seven general economic indicators, to measure the relative economic performance of the Member States. The Bullmann report lost no time before hurling itself into the breach and proposing to add a whole host of indicators in the fields of allocating public expenditure, the nature of this expenditure, the environment, productivity, employment, youth unemployment, social exclusion, poverty including a breakdown by age and sex, and Lord knows what else.
This might possibly be a valid approach if the aim was to collect data on our various situations. According to the Bullmann report, however, these indicators were clearly intended to provide the basis for new European regulations which would have fleshed out “the Union’s social legislative framework”. The report goes on to specify that this regulatory strategy was to be crowned by an “interinstitutional agreement” enabling the European Parliament to be fully involved.
Even at the time of the Lisbon Council, I was already voicing my opposition to the authoritarian tone of some of the conclusions, such as those, for example, which took on society’s role in deciding that it was necessary to increase the rate of participation of women in the labour market. Yet the proposals of the Bullmann report could well have vastly accentuated this sideways shift. After rejecting this report, we now hope that the Stockholm Council, in March, will bring the Commission back into line. We must not slide down the slippery slope from open coordination to closed planning."@en1
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