Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-17-Speech-4-243"
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. The health and safety rules applicable to me are obviously not being applied today. I have hardly sat down.
Globalisation and industrial change bring social problems in their wake. However, they can also be a source of prosperity for people and regions, if the change is designed and controlled appropriately. The main concern for governments and the Community is to strike a balance between promoting corporate innovation and growth, on the one hand, and preparing people for change and, possibly, the necessary protective measures, on the other.
This was why my colleague, Mrs Diamantopoulou, announced a check list for corporate restructuring last week. This check list includes political instruments already available, namely legislation, monitoring procedures, financial help and tried and tested procedures. governments and companies must make optimum use of these instruments or devise new instruments. Dialogue, transparency, suitable participation of workers, anticipation, risk prevention and developing employability are the key elements in a European response to this challenge. Let us do our very best to develop these legislative and other instruments which will help us to put our ideas into practice.
The recent persistent wave of redundancies by numerous large companies as the result of closures or restructuring measures has reached worrying proportions. Restructuring is often used as a euphemism for redundancies. These redundancies do not only affect the employees themselves, they also affect their families and sometimes, where they depend on one or two main employers, whole regions.
As much of the recent restructuring announced has taken place at European level, there is urgent need for the Community to act. A comprehensive Community concept should possibly combine innovative measures with an examination of existing instruments. I intend at this point to confine myself to the legal aspects.
First a word on quickly adopting new and updating existing legislation. In relation to the framework directive on informing and hearing workers, may I say that the Commission will complete its amended proposal on a general framework for informing and hearing workers in the next few days, so as to ensure that it can be quickly adopted in the Council. The Commission will press for the Council to adopt the directive on 11 June. We hope that a consensus will be reached. However, if necessary, we shall endeavour to reach political agreement by a qualified majority. We cannot wait for ever, especially in the present climate of insecurity created by the restructuring plans of numerous companies.
I should like once again to emphasise a decisive aspect of the Commission proposal in this context, namely the question of sanctions. I know that Parliament emphatically supports this action and shares the Commission's satisfaction with the progress made recently in this sensitive area.
With Parliament's support and the Council's strong political will, we can wrap this process up by the end of the year, which will be a decisive step forward.
Now to the Statute for European Companies. We also achieved another important, long-awaited result at the end of last year: the Statute for European Companies with provisions for worker participation. One of the most excellent and positive aspects of the Statute is the fact that it contains joined up provisions on worker participation which reflect the progressive approach taken at national level in the proposal on informing and hearing workers. This will certainly help ensure that better account is taken of the social dimension when European companies are restructured.
I am positive that the European Parliament will do everything to ensure that this legal act is adopted immediately after the summer recess.
Finally, to the revision of the directive on European works councils. The Commission will revise the directive on European works councils in 2002 but will continue to examine the practical implementation of the directive in the run up to the revision."@en1
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