Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-10-Speech-3-279"
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"en.20040310.8.3-279"2
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".
Mr President, I should like to thank all those who have been involved and helped me shape this report. The report is somewhat like the curate's egg – it is good in parts and not so good in parts; in fact, it is lousy in some parts. I hope that tomorrow we will be able to rectify the bad bits and remove them.
First, I want to concentrate on one or two of the good bits. The report recognises that the Solvit project is up and running. It recognises that there is a need for a consistent and correct application of the CE mark. It supports the work of the Competitiveness Council. It recognises that the internal market is about creating more and better jobs; it is about creating wealth, not just for businesses; and it is about social cohesion. It also recognises the benchmarking of existing liberalised services, based on a broad set of criteria, some of which are social. There is also the consultation with our social partners. It also encourages Member States' parliaments to address the whole problem of gold plating. These are the good bits in this report. Unfortunately they are only the icing on the cake. Once we get into the cake we find the bad bits. That is where this report goes wrong.
Reading the Commission's document, step-by-step, there is a clear agenda. The Commission argues that many of the Member State economies are in a downturn at the moment and that in order to give them a boost and to help those flagging economies we must look at more structural reform. What does it mean by structural reform? You read on and it starts talking about liberalising more of our public services. It argues that because the electricity and gas sectors are smaller than the water sector and have been liberalised, we should liberalise the water sector. Taking that argument even further, in Europe our health and education sectors are bigger than the water sector is today. If you go down the road of liberalising our water sector then you go down the road of liberalising our health and education sectors. That is not what I am about.
I have looked at this report. This is not what Europe is about. We have had liberalisation of certain industries in Europe. I only need to look at British Rail to see what a disaster that has been. Before we go down the road of further liberalisation of any services we have to take stock of what has happened so far.
We have talked about the Lisbon agenda. That features strongly in the internal market report from the Commission. However, when we look at the Lisbon agenda, what comes up time and time again is the economic criteria. There is another side to the Lisbon agenda – a social side. That never gets mentioned these days. We always forget about workers' rights when we talk about the Lisbon agenda. Instead, it is market, market, market. It is high time that we moved away from that.
I believe that the internal market is about workers; it is about workers' rights; it is about health and safety; it is about living conditions; it is about elderly people; it is about young people; it is about disabled people; it is about employment and unemployment; it is about the training of young, old and unemployed people. It is not only about profit for major companies. Tomorrow we will vote on one of the most important issues that faces European citizens: whether we give the green light to the Commission to go down the road of looking at the liberalisation of our water sector.
I do not believe that water is an internal market issue. I do not think that it should be in this report, but it is. I hope that we will remove that tomorrow. Our citizens do not want a liberalised water sector. Europe has a soul. If we sell out our social agenda, which is part of the internal market agenda, part of the Lisbon agenda, then we are lost forever. We cannot let down our citizens. Tomorrow we must support all the amendments that reject further liberalisation."@en1
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