Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-11-Speech-2-124"
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"en.20030311.6.2-124"2
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vice-chair; Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy (2002-01-22--2004-07-19)3
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"Madam President, Commissioner, there is no doubt that Mr Mann has done an excellent job. Indeed, his proposals are based on the highest Community tradition in social matters and employment policy and, in terms of proactive measures, incorporate a broad range of innovative points and fields such as the knowledge-based society and its strategic implications. I am certainly not making the points that follow out of a desire to criticise, therefore, but, if anything, in order to share our hopes, although I fear that they may be quite insubstantial in areas such as small and medium-sized enterprises, with regard to which a number of different points have been made.
Indeed, we all know that, as regards taxation, if we want to implement the recommendations made we have three options, which can either be treated as alternatives or employed in parallel: the Stability Pact and its durability, particularly with regard to the possibility of complete exemption for SMEs for the first three years, in view of their substantial contribution to national GDP; a review of the areas covered by the subsidiarity system; or, again, a review of the areas requiring a unanimity vote in the Council. I am not being pessimistic here, just realistic.
Another good example in the area of financial matters is the proposed policies for making credit available to small and medium-sized enterprises, which would appear to be in contrast with the contents of the 2002 Basel agreement, which does not allow the necessary raising of sufficient venture capital for small and medium-sized enterprise and for the internationalisation thereof. The same may be said of incentives to promote employment, as the rapporteur calls them, which are considered to be a different matter from flexibility and bureaucratic relief. If they are, then they are direct examples of State aid pursuant to Article 87(3)(a) and (c) of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which, as the rapporteur is aware, only apply in areas identified in 1998, apparently without possibility of amendment, not even where situations have changed with the passage of time.
The role of the social partners, however, which the rapporteur has rightly emphasised, is a consideration worthy of mention. Called upon to implement forms of local partnership and contractual flexibility within a coherent framework of principles, the social partners are now, despite the European social dialogue, in a position where they do not, in practice, have the bodies or policies to lay down minimum social standards for enterprises, particularly in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, notwithstanding
the fact that a great many of these enterprises originate from current Member States. This is a situation which, in these countries, usually combined with lower taxation and a gradual increase in the consideration given to the Community acquis in environmental matters, is certainly creating new jobs, although it does mean that there is no hope of narrowing clear social gaps, even in the medium term.
A further point concerns the knowledge-based society itself, aims and objectives of which we support. As the rapporteur is aware, the knowledge-based society cannot be achieved just by increasing the number of computers in families and schools or by introducing better, more focused training, although that is needed, but it is based on both the full, appropriate exploitation of useful information and the availability of this information.
In conclusion, what I fear is that, despite all the emphasis continually and repeatedly placed on the importance of employment and social policies and their horizontal integration with other policies, they will remain merely a kind of by-product, a by-product which, within the Member States which are unmindful of the content of the European social agenda, combines the sterile display of positive or negative quantitative results with, I am sad to say, constant rhetoric and equally persistent erosion of quality."@en1
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