Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-02-Speech-2-173"
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"en.20030902.7.2-173"2
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". Madam President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Lambert, for her excellent report, especially because in order to draw up this kind of report on this particular issue it is not enough to be a sensitive politician: one must be a very committed technocrat. It is such a complex and difficult area.
Amendment Nos 2 and 43 also have to be rejected by the Commission because there is no legal basis for such a provision. The coordination rules cannot require a Member State to guarantee the right to unemployment benefit to a person who decides to leave employment. We could, however, envisage a provision which reflects the philosophy of these amendments while respecting the limits of coordination.
As I said earlier, one of the effects of the Commission's proposal will be that unemployed frontier workers will receive unemployment benefits from the state of last employment, rather than from the state of residence as is currently the case. I am aware that this change might have considerable financial consequences for Luxembourg, which has a very large number of frontier workers residing in other Member States. A transitional period aimed at avoiding a sudden shock for Luxembourg seems reasonable. Therefore, the Commission can accept Amendment No 56.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 20 because it lies outside the scope of the coordination of the social security schemes. Only the applicable national legislation can determine who is a 'member of the family'. There were two particularly interesting comments from Mrs Weiler and Mrs Bastos on this point. I could agree with the philosophy behind these comments, and the modernisation of the sense and the definition of 'family', but we must take into account the fact that there is national legislation which defines and determines what a 'member of the family' is. For the same reason, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 49.
Amendment No 27 is too rigid and could lead to problems of interpretation. It cannot be accepted by the Commission.
Amendment No 54 aims at guaranteeing a retired frontier worker the choice of obtaining health care either in the state of residence or in the state of last employment. Amendment No 41 has exactly the same objective. Although the conditions under which such a right is guaranteed differ in the two amendments, the Commission can accept either of the two.
In the same way, although there is a difference between Amendment No 50 and Amendment No 33 as regards the conditions under which the members of the family of a frontier worker are guaranteed a right to obtain health care in the state of employment of the worker, the Commission can accept either of the two amendments.
Finally, as regards Amendment Nos 44 and 45, these cannot be accepted by the Commission because they are outside the scope of the rules on the coordination of social security schemes.
To sum up, the Commission can accept in full Amendment Nos 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 46, 47, 48, 51, 52, 53, 55 and 56. It can accept either Amendment No 50 or Amendment No 33. It can accept either Amendment No 53 or Amendment No 36. It can accept in part Amendment No 11. It cannot accept Amendment Nos 2 or 43 as proposed, but could envisage another wording for these. It rejects Amendment Nos 1, 20, 27, 38, 40, 42, 44, 45 and 49 – I think this is the first time I have partly agreed with Mr Bushill-Matthews!
I would like to thank Mrs Lambert and the committee again for their cooperation and for their work on this issue, which is so important for European workers.
I would also like to thank Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and all other Members involved. They really have had to work hard, not only in terms of the complexity of the file, but also as regards the problems surrounding unanimity and the huge differences which exist from Member State to Member State.
It is very important to repeat what Mrs Thorning-Schmidt repeatedly underlined: the whole effort aims to modernise and simplify the regulation. It is not a political exercise of harmonisation, which, for legal and political reasons, is totally impossible on this issue.
The position of the Commission on the various amendments is as follows:
The Commission can accept in full Amendment Nos 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 41, as well as Amendment Nos 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, and 54, which aim either to clarify and to render more precise the Commission's proposal; or, via recitals, to draw attention to certain specific problems which cannot be solved by the rules on coordination of social security schemes; or to incorporate recent case-law of the Court of Justice.
The Commission accepts in part Amendment No 11, which concerns declarations to be made by the Member States about their legislation. However, the proposed text is too rigid. A yearly declaration would be sufficient.
Although I understand and agree with the ideas behind Amendment Nos 38 and 40, the Commission cannot accept them because these provisions should figure in the implementing regulation instead.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 42, which would not amount to simplification at all. The Commission has sympathy for the philosophy behind the amendment. The same result can, however, be achieved in another way. This is exactly the objective of Amendment No 55, which the Commission can accept in full. This amendment is also in line with the proposal the Commission presented in Julywhich concerns in particular the list of the so-called special non-contributory benefits, which are not exportable under the current regulation. The Commission's proposal aims to reduce the list of these special non-contributory benefits. The majority of the benefits which will be deleted from this list are disability benefits. It is important that this point has been underlined by many Members. The disability organisations are also satisfied.
The Commission has to reject Amendment No 1, which aims at coordination between taxation and social security schemes because there is no legal base for such harmonisation. The Commission could, however, envisage a recital that is worded in a different way. Therefore, the Commission can accept Amendment No 48."@en1
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