Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-08-Speech-3-042"
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"en.20031008.6.3-042"2
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".
Mr President, I would like to thank all the Members for this debate, in which I feel a number of very valuable points have been made.
All the speakers have pointed out, with different emphases, that the liberal professions are well-rooted in history – Mr Gargani spoke eloquently on this subject – and that we need to strike a balance between sets of contrasting concepts: self-regulation and public regulation; the market and non-market considerations; specificity and, notwithstanding, endeavours to generate greater mobility in Europe. It has been pointed out, as I said, that we need a balance: this may be where the emphases differ, for some – like Mr Medina Ortega and, to an even greater extent, Mr Della Vedova – believe that the current balance may not be a proper balance and that a great deal more progress needs to be made; others, who are more cautious, call for the specific nature of the liberal professions to be given greater consideration and, therefore, for the current balances to be seen as not so unsatisfactory.
Another thing which appears to have emerged from the debate is that we need to know more, we need to increase our knowledge. This was precisely the reason for the evaluation exercise, based on the study commissioned by the Commission from the Institute of Higher Studies in Vienna, which I believe adds to our knowledge in that it looks at the current systems in the 15 Member States for five different categories of liberal professions and attempts to make comparisons. On this basis, indeed, we believe that the hearing, the Conference of 28 October, in which, as has been pointed out by Mr Medina Ortega, in particular, representatives of clients as well as representatives of the professions will take part, may be useful. In this regard, we must not forget that the clients of the professions are made up of both private individuals and companies: the impact of quality, of course, of standards of conduct and also of prices is therefore significant in terms of the real level of income, the citizens’ standard of living and the production costs of companies.
The situations in the Member States differ, as has emerged from this study. In this regard, Mr Karas, I feel that the comparison you made between this issue of the liberal professions and the matter of services of general economic interest
to put it more succinctly
is extremely interesting. Indeed, in both cases, we have to recognise demands that go beyond purely market considerations and, in both cases, I believe there is room, with due regard for those demands, for attempting to increase competition and efficiency.
I feel that the Commission is taking a very balanced approach to this task. I note, as you did, Mr Zappalà, that some alarm has arisen in a number of Member States. I would like, if I may, to take this opportunity to stress that such alarm is unfounded, for two reasons: firstly because – to use your expression – nobody is trying to lump everyone together; on the contrary, the study on which our evaluation exercise is based distinguishes, as I said, between five professional categories and 15 Member States, precisely in order to avoid lumping everyone together under the same umbrella. In a preliminary press debate in a number of Member States, the European Commission was said to be intending to opt for uncontrolled liberalisation. Irrespective of the fact that the Commission has a tradition of a certain prudence in its initiatives, we believe that, particularly in this field, it would be rather silly to start from the assumption that there is nothing that needs changing, although none of us sees uncontrolled liberalisation as an option."@en1
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