Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-15-Speech-1-065"
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"en.20031215.7.1-065"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this directive’s story is never-ending; Parliament, the Council and the Commission have been discussing this issue for well over 15 years. Right now, I have no desire to go through everything that has happened in relation to it in the past. I share the Commissioner’s view that something more would have been desirable. I still believe that a better solution was represented by the joint initiative that we set in motion during the Greek Presidency of the Council with the aim of finding an overall solution that would create truly uniform conditions of competition in Europe. As tends to be the case with political change, we ended up having to make compromises, and the best is the enemy of the good. What we have before us is what was negotiated with the Italian Presidency and unanimously adopted in the Council as part of a political agreement and, in essence, the same as what was adopted by this House’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and by its Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. It is a compromise with which all parties can live under the prevailing circumstances, and that in itself shows that it is a good one.
We will achieve the goals of which the Commissioner spoke, but, for now, they do no more than indicate what is currently achievable in terms of European law. The rest we can leave to the markets. We have been given an objective to aim at, but, according to this proposal, it will ultimately be the markets that decide whether or not what is proposed is right, and in which direction things will change.
Having had in-depth discussions with the various Council Presidencies – starting with the Danes, then with the Greeks, and now with the Italians – we now have the opportunity of wrapping up this issue once and for all. The Italian Presidency of the Council has offered us the possibility of completing this procedure in one reading, and, as we are in any case approaching the end of this Parliament, I believe that we should make use of this opportunity.
Over recent months, the rapporteur and the committees were kept fully and regularly informed of the progress of the deliberations. People from all quarters of this House were involved. I therefore ask you to vote in favour of the Commission proposal. I cannot but note with regret that a number of groups have submitted amendments aimed in particular at further extending the rights of workers. It is with reference to them that I wish to make it clear that this compromise already includes workers’ rights; it is explicitly laid down in the compromise reached on Article 9, that the workers’ representatives have to be informed and that they can make a statement, which, together with the board’s statement, must be made available to the shareholders and to the public. By way of a compromise, Article 13 ensures that all existing rights of workers to participation and co-determination – be they put in place by the nation states or by Europe – are retained and remain unaffected by this directive.
Here too, I think, one must be amenable to compromise. Rather than constantly wanting to enforce pure doctrine, one must at some point reach a compromise. There is something positively paradoxical about a situation in which it is the Socialist governments in the Council that want to prevent workers gaining more rights – the examples I would give are the Swedes and the British Labour Government – while, here in this House, the Left, led by the Socialists, who are willing to let these directives and this proposal fail, even though their own governments, at Council level, are blocking these compromises that go even further.
This compromise will, in my view, provide adequate protection for workers’ rights. There is no reason to go further. I would therefore ask you to reject these amendments, for, if you do not – for so we have been told in unambiguous terms by the Council – the whole of the compromise that has been achieved will be in jeopardy.
If we approve this directive, this compromise, we will be demonstrating the European Union’s capacity to act in difficult times. It is for that reason that I ask you to vote in favour. We could now bring this never-ending story to a close.
I want especially to thank all the co-rapporteurs and the shadow rapporteurs from all the groups. I want to make especial mention, by name, of Mr Huhne, with whom I have enjoyed the closest possible cooperation. We have run the Rule 162a – enhanced cooperation – procedure very well and have achieved a good result. What I ask this House to do is to bring this never-ending story to a full stop by voting in favour and letting the end of this year be marked by a real success for the European Union."@en1
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