Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-10-27-Speech-3-013"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20041027.3.3-013"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to ask the President-in-Office two questions. One is about yesterday’s sitting: I should like to know what the President-in-Office had to do that was so urgent that he could not join us. I think his presence would have been important and most welcome in the kind of debate we had yesterday. My second question is about the Lisbon strategy: before I go into it in detail, I should like to know how the Presidency is thinking of organising the relationships between the three high-level reports that have recently been produced: the Strauss-Kahn report, the Sapir report and the latest Kok report. Most of what is said in these three reports is rather similar, but then it is not clear what the relationship between them is or, above all, how they will be followed up. I should be grateful if the President-in-Office could tell us something about these two points.
Regarding the content of the Kok report and how we might carry the Lisbon strategy forward, I should like to offer three considerations. First, when the European social model is mentioned, at least in these reports within the context of the discussion on the Lisbon strategy, there is a tendency to focus exclusively on the living standards and income levels that have to be guaranteed. We believe, however, that that is an extremely limited view of the European social model, which also involves the issue of how people live and hence the models of social cohesion that exist in Europe, how people consume and hence also the respect they have for our environment, and how people produce, thus trying to apply criteria of transparency and participation in a positive manner.
Secondly, we think it is a real mistake, especially for a group of top experts, to consider that just labour market reforms and the need to cut down rules and constraints are the only real ways for us to become truly competitive. We believe that there has been a complete lack of any serious thought about the macroeconomic reforms that are needed and, for instance, about how to overcome the weaknesses on the demand side.
Thirdly, in this as in other reports, the inclusion of the environmental dimension in the Lisbon strategy really seems to be merely a kind of token gesture: no one believes in it very much but there is a feeling that it has at least to be mentioned for the sake of conformism and political correctness. It is pushed into the background and left out of the real notion of growth. I should like to know what the Presidency intends to do on this subject as well.
With regard to the sphere of justice and home affairs, we have two concerns on topics you will be discussing. On the one hand, while it is true that the G5 substantially ruled out the idea of camps outside the European Union, it is also true that the report you are going to consider does mention dealing with asylum applications outside the European Union, in cooperation with third countries. We do not, of course, oppose such cooperation – we just have to see how it works in practice. The report also mentions increasing the asylum capacity of third countries, something that I find particularly heartless when talking about developing countries. I should be grateful if you could tell us why this general opposition to the camps is then somehow picked up again in the report and how the Presidency intends to approach this issue. The second difficulty is clearly that of codecision, the infamous ‘bridge’, to which there is considerable opposition. What is the Dutch Presidency’s strategy?
Lastly, Mr President-in-Office, a question about the issue of enlargement or, rather, about this period straddling enlargement and the accession of the new Member States. I should like to know whether the Presidency intends to do anything about the Turkish Cypriot question. As you know, the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community has lost his majority. I should be grateful to hear what you intend to do, because the European Union clearly cannot abandon the Turkish Cypriots as it is doing at the moment."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples