Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-10-Speech-3-030"
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"en.20040310.1.3-030"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to follow on from Mr Tajani’s closing remarks. Yesterday, Mr President-in-Office, I handed over to you more than 10 000 signatures of people in my constituency who are petitioning for the inclusion of a reference to the Christian heritage of Europe in the preamble to the Treaty. Quite frankly, any building that is not constructed on firm foundations will ultimately be doomed to collapse. We must not build Europe on weak foundations but on the common basis that incorporates the heritage of our continent. The people of my constituency have great faith in the Irish presidency and are confident that you will yet be able to present proposals for the inclusion of such a reference in the preamble.
I also wish to say a few words about the competitiveness of the European Union, because it is a subject that will receive special treatment at the spring summit, and I should like to address my appeal to the Commission in particular. It is not sufficient to organise a summit on competitiveness once a year, and then consider the matter closed, when, throughout the year, we are inundated with proposals that would make Europe less competitive, of which the legislative and policy proposal on chemicals is but one example. This proposal is designed to de-industrialise the European Union. The Commission must be in no doubt about that. Withdraw it, and you will be contributing to a more competitive Europe. The same applies to advertising restrictions. I could name many other directives too. What I would suggest is that the Commission should declare its willingness to withdraw the ten worst proposals for directives. That would greatly enhance the competitiveness of the European Union.
There is a second point I should like to raise, namely that the Member States must honour the commitments they make. I myself come from a country whose government, even though it has been told for years what it needs to do, has done nothing in years to free up the labour market and create a more competitive economy. This is where there is also a need to reflect on ways of exercising stricter control to ensure that the Member States actually fulfil their obligations. Then we shall achieve growth and employment throughout Europe."@en1
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