Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-02-04-Speech-1-098"
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"en.20020204.7.1-098"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner Bolkestein, the situation of the stranded lorry drivers in Luxembourg shows us once again where there is a need for European regulation and monitoring. Scarcely ever before has it been made so clear to us what is actually going on in this particular labour market and what is happening to these lorry drivers. If ever you talk to European lorry drivers, you will hear how people in that sector work, some of them illegally, and what sort of wages they are paid for doing so; they drive to the point of exhaustion, and not all of them have social security insurance. That is the reality of one European labour market, and that is the problem facing us.
Looked at from this angle, this work time regulation is long overdue – in the interests of our safety on the roads and of the safety of the workers, that is, the drivers themselves. I might add that, as has already been mentioned, this case is not only an issue for Luxembourg or about a few Austrian businessmen, we now know that we are dealing with a large number of Austrian businessmen. It is also a European phenomenon. For me as an out-and-out advocate of European enlargement, the core problem is the way we are doing the dirty on workers from the candidate countries; it is these workers who are bound today by collective contracts to work for derisory wages, and under conditions which are, in social terms, appalling. Such is the way this group of workers has entered into our European Union, and that is what we have to take a stand against.
In any case, though, every cloud has a silver lining. In Austria, my country, a group of hauliers' representatives has already taken a stand and spoken out in favour of European regulations tending towards controls and measures that will influence even this ruinous competition. That is the situation we face.
I would add, Commissioner, that you should be prompted by that to think more and better about control systems for workers in the European labour market."@en1
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