Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-09-Speech-3-074"
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"en.20021009.6.3-074"2
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"Mr President, I should like to thank both the Council and the Commission warmly for their introduction, but I should also particularly like to thank both our PPE-DE rapporteurs, Mrs Regina Bastos and Mr Philip Bushill-Matthews, for their reports. After all, it is important not just to debate the general aspect, but also to address two very specific components of the employment issue.
First of all, the SMEs which are, of course, of key importance to the economic structure, and Mrs Bastos' report which naturally mainly concerns the labour market structure and the EU's education and training structure. If these are not kept in step with each other, then something is wrong. At present, the economy is, of course, not in terribly good shape. This will undoubtedly have an impact on the labour market. We already know this and we should be prepared for this. This is why I wonder whether the Council is not a little too upbeat. Is it not relying too much on figures from the recent past, when growth and the development of productivity were far better than now?
A second question that can be addressed to the Council is, of course, whether they are not being overly optimistic in combining all these processes. We are certainly not opposed to this, but are we not in danger of creating another Johannesburg Summit of some kind, or to put it in biblical terms, a Tower of Babel, with all these processes happening simultaneously? Will this produce any extra benefits? This is my second question.
A question I should like to ask the Commission, one that is related to what I said on a general note, is the issue of whether the Commission takes account of its own directives. I am very aware of the fact that as soon as a social directive is issued, very extensive discussions on employment will follow immediately. This is currently the case with, for example, the directive on working conditions for temporary staff. There are also other directives, though, in the field of the economy itself or in the field of annual reporting, and there are many complaints, also from SMEs, that these directives are very detrimental to employment. I will give you an example that occurred this week, namely Commissioner Bolkestein's Take-Over Directive. This directive will almost certainly cost tens of thousands of jobs in the Netherlands and in Germany and, in time, will undermine the present social system. Is this taken into consideration in the Commission's decision-making process? Does consideration of how many jobs will be lost come into it at all? Or is the focus in respect of these inherently sound intentions on the social directives? If this were the case, this would, in my view, be wrong. I would therefore like to find out from the Commission whether this was the case here, and if not, whether this is likely to happen in future.
As I have already said, we are still facing a difficult situation in the area of employment. I think that a number of things can still happen at EU level. I would, for example, mention the issue of the arms industry, which is very badly regulated in Europe, and where we could achieve far better employment levels but also far better efficiency than at present. I know that a lot of people would prefer not to talk about this too much but would rather leave this to the course of time. This too is therefore a problem that I believe we need to consider.
Finally, I think we should still be very careful not to look exclusively and excessively to America, and to believe that they do everything better than we do. We have seen a few recent cases – it is enough for me to mention Enron, but also the current strike on the west coast – in which the United States does not do so well. I would urge the Council and the Commission mainly to try to adopt the good things that are happening in the United States and not too many of the bad things, and also not to think that we are doing so badly on all scores. We often do much better than we think."@en1
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