Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-20-Speech-3-019"
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"en.20020320.5.3-019"2
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"Mr President, on behalf of my group, I wish to fully support your initial comments and to express my own absolute condemnation of the appalling act of terrorism which has cast a shadow over Italy.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, in some ways, the conclusions of the Barcelona European Council tell us more about the state of the European Union than any speech on the subject. Let me quote three examples to illustrate my point.
As a rule, the annual spring summit of the Heads of State and Government of the Community of Fifteen stresses the social dimension of European integration. So what did the Barcelona Summit achieve in this respect? Mr President-in-Office, you mentioned the decision to put back the effective retirement age by five years. Another example is the solemn undertaking to respect the Stability and Growth Pact by limiting public and social expenditure and through wage moderation. Then there is the issue of introducing flexible working – what others might call precarious working conditions. Do you think our fellow citizens can accept this approach? Mr President-in-Office, what is your assessment of the progress achieved since the Lisbon Summit two years ago towards the target of full employment announced at that time for 2010? Are unemployment and poverty on the way to being overcome? Why did you not refer to the figures that the Commission itself has published on this subject, for example, the 60 million people living on the poverty line in the Member States after social transfers? What conclusions would you draw from this? What progress have we made so far with the implementation of the social agenda agreed in Nice? I would like to hear some replies that go beyond the extremely broad-brush comments contained in the conclusions of the summit.
My second comment relates to the issue of services of general interest. We particularly note the call on the Commission to draw up a proposal for a framework directive on this subject. We will very closely follow the content and effective scope of this document. In that context, Mr President, on 13 November last year the European Parliament called for a rapid and precise comparative assessment of the real impact of the policy of liberalisation of services of general interest before embarking on further stages of liberalisation. What has become of that study? It has not been prepared and yet you have still driven forward the process of liberalisation. Are we to conclude from this that you have no respect for the specific requests of Members of Parliament and of Europe's citizens?
Turning to the electricity sector, do you not have any lessons to learn from the fiasco in California or from the collapse of Enron? What is more, there are five countries operating in your own country, Spain, and all of them are private. The company that is most important in the Barcelona area, in particular, is incapable of guaranteeing supplies for its customers, and Catalonia was plunged into darkness last December. The chairman of another Spanish company has warned that worse is still to come. And just to put the tin lid on it, your government is about to pay these companies EUR 7.8 billion raised from Spanish taxpayers to help them prepare for even greater deregulation. Is that true or false, Mr President-in-Office? Is this the model whose widespread implementation is supposed to make the European Union the most competitive and dynamic economy in the world, to quote the rather high-flown and somewhat presumptuous phrases at present in vogue in our institutions?
Finally, before, during and after the Barcelona Summit there was what "
" in its headlines rightly called a major demonstration in favour of a different kind of globalisation. And this was – this is my own point here – despite the unacceptable limitations that you imposed on the freedom of movement of hundreds of European citizens. In what way, Mr President, did you take into account this unprecedented call from our respective societies to leading European decision makers? It certainly seems that the motto of the European Union in Barcelona was based on the three words you yourself used to define your philosophy at a recent conference at the Estorial, if I may quote you: "liberalisation, privatisation and competition". This may make entrepreneurs’ and shareholders' mouths water, but it certainly will not appeal to most of our fellow citizens. That is because a good many of us have different ambitions for Europe, which involve offering the world an alternative to the liberalising, predatory and ruthless approach which underpins globalisation at present. We in my group and others fully support the demonstrations by the public, activists and trade unions which represent the new order the day. See you in Seville!"@en1
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