Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-10-Speech-3-281"
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"en.20040310.8.3-281"2
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".
Mr President, this afternoon, Commissioner Bolkestein presented here in Strasbourg his latest book on Europe's borders. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this presentation, Commissioner, but I should like to congratulate you on it all the same. This evening, I should like to consider the limits to the Commissioner's urge for liberalisation, which appear to be non-existent.
First of all, I should like to extend warm thanks to Mr Miller for the good working relationship. It is not his fault that the vote in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has produced a somewhat distorted report. As I understand it, Mr Harbour is taking on the blame for this. As rapporteur for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I am naturally very disappointed that only three of my amendments have been adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. My group has re-submitted the other amendments and we hope that the Christian Democrats and Liberals will be supporting those tomorrow with their Socialist hats on.
As far as the urge for liberalisation is concerned, I can put Mr Bolkestein's mind at rest. Unlike some of my colleagues here on the left, I am not by definition against liberalisation, but I am opposed to market fundamentalism and to pushing through liberalisation at all costs, if the conditions and public guarantees are not yet in place by a long way and liberalisation is loss-making on all fronts, except for the private monopolies and their adherents who can seize on their chances in this. It is high time that we in Europe put a brake on liberalisation of that kind and that a framework directive was put in place for services of general interest, thus providing a counterweight for the dominance of the competition rules. I can see the Commissioner hesitating in that respect, and he is palming us off with one excuse after the other.
One final remark about the new directive on the internal market for services: that really seems to me to be a case of extreme madness, because it undermines everything that we have laid down in Europe in the area of subsidiarity and the precedence of the rules of the country where the services are performed. The new proposal for a directive is throwing the existing regulation into utter confusion and threatens drastically to restrict the Member States' policy room to determine conditions on the basis of general interest, monitoring the quality of society and the environment and guaranteeing fundamental rights. In my view, some elements are even inconsistent with the corresponding guiding principles in the Treaty. It is beyond me why you want to get this through Parliament before your departure, and I am pleased that the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has in any case decided not to proceed too hastily in this matter. In the Miller report, my group urges that no final decisions should yet be taken, about this new directive among other things, until such time as the discussion about the legal framework for services of general interest is complete. This does not strike me as being unreasonable."@en1
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