Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-05-30-Speech-4-051"
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"en.20020530.4.4-051"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Howitt on his work on an elaborate report in which it would have been easy to either go too far or not go far enough.
If we look at the concept of companies, there was a longstanding economic concept that a company was an organisation of people, which, through controlling goods and services, had the aim of producing goods and services for a market. This is a purely economic concept. However, the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, which was recently enacted in Directive 2001/23, talks about a company as an organised group of people and elements enabling a business activity to be conducted pursuing their own objective. This is clearly a much broader concept which we could also relate to recital C of the report, which says that within companies and among investors a consensus is developing that they have a broader mission than simply making profits, and that the challenge for success lies in combining profitability with sustainability and responsibility.
I think that companies, whatever their format, however many staff they have or whatever funds they have, live in a global world in which their voluntary, encouraged and prompted contribution, and I realise what I am saying, I am not saying compulsory or imposed by law, to achieving a better society, has a new meaning. As it says in the Green Paper, although the main responsibility of the company is to generate profits, it can also contribute at the same time to achieving social and environmental objectives, and that should not be seen solely as an obligation or responsibility for particular types of companies or companies that operate in particular sectors.
I think that this is a good instrument for fulfilling the Lisbon strategy: an economy that is as developed as possible, creating more and better jobs, which respects the environment and guarantees social cohesion. It will ultimately be a suitable instrument for establishing the European social model and it will also be good for companies, because profitability and social responsibility go hand in hand and cannot be separated from each other."@en1
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