Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-26-Speech-3-053"
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"en.20050126.6.3-053"2
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"Mr President, you were right to include Lisbon in your work programme – the Lisbon that is intended to make Europe the most competitive global region. I am sure everyone in this Chamber thinks we want to achieve that; the question now arises of how we do it. Some of it Europe can afford, and I would urge you to focus your work programme rather more on the self-employed and small businesses instead of solely on large-scale industries or on more innovative sectors; important though these certainly are, most businesses – truism though it is to say so – are small ones or one-man operations. Your programme does not, unfortunately, do justice to their importance.
The other thing I want to say is that you have to monitor the Member States in this respect and point out when they have to implement the necessary reforms. I have high expectations of the Commission actually doing that, but I have to say that, having first vowed to stand up to the Council, the Commission gave up even before embarking on its first contest with them. That brings me to the Stability and Growth Pact. Look at your Commission and the Commissioner with responsibility for these matters; it is apparent to me from the statements he makes that all he is doing is picking the Council’s proposals to pieces. Where the Stability and Growth Pact is concerned, I think back to the time when Mr Juncker joined us in Committee and said: ‘You have to learn’. He was right: politicians, too, have to learn. The problem with the Pact is that it is those who offend against it – the finance ministers – who decide among themselves whether or not the Pact is to apply. You ought to fight to have the Commission given greater power in this area. In the areas we are discussing, though, it is unfortunate that the Commission is not doing that, but simply walking behind the Council and making life even easier for it. This is where Mr Solbes was a good example of the sort of commitment required, and a good yardstick by which to measure it.
Let me, in addition, urge you not to indulge in the Prodi Commission’s obstructive tactics, for the Commissioners at the time, who played a part in them, had their work cut out – Mrs Wallström, who is here today, spent five years helping to make Europe the most competitive area. Judge by the results, and, if you do not make a quick job of putting a stop to bureaucracy, you will end up the same way as the Prodi Commission."@en1
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