Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-02-21-Speech-1-084"
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"en.20050221.13.1-084"2
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".
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, even though the subject of this debate is the Commission’s legislative and work programme for 2005, it must, of course, be seen in the wider strategic framework, which is strongly influenced by the Lisbon strategy and, regrettably, is designed primarily to intensify competition. To make matters worse, I believe it is also using the wrong means to pursue that goal.
The operating profits of the large conglomerates in the European Union increased by 78% in 2004. The ratio of profits to GDP is at what is nearly its highest level in the last 25 years. Over the past 12 months, another substantial surplus has been registered in the balance of trade and the balance of payments.
Even in the Federal Republic of Germany, where the large companies are constantly bleating about being shackled by an uncompetitive location, 46 of the 50 companies listed in the Dax index clocked up staggering increases in their profits over the first three quarters.
At the same time, unemployment is rising. There are more and more debates on the introduction of longer working hours in various different forms. Employees are expected to practise wage restraint, which effectively amounts to a drop in real incomes. Welfare benefits are being cut or recipients’ contributions drastically increased, and schemes based on solidarity are increasingly being shunted towards dependence on private funding.
These actions are weakening demand instead of strengthening it. We regard this as a pernicious trend. Of course we need competition, but it must be compatible with the Gothenburg criteria, so as to minimise unemployment, maximise consumer protection and guarantee social security within a healthy environment, and so as to achieve social cohesion through solidarity and sustainable development.
Accordingly, we must make the following pleas to the Commission: abandon your neo-liberal economic policies and scrap your directives on service provision in the single market as well as the Working Time Directive and present replacements in the form of directives on improved health and safety at work or on the harmonisation of welfare standards. Protect small and medium-sized enterprises by using the directives adopted by the last Parliament, such as the directive on software patents, as the basis for a new proposal. Together with the Council, amend the Stability Pact to make expenditure on education and training count as investment, thereby eliminating it from the calculation of the debt ratio. Strive for democratic and socially just world trade by trying to reform the WTO, and do not go to Hong Kong with the same ideas that the old Commission took to Cancún.
Do not argue for more effective military options, but only for peaceful solutions. Campaign for better protection of the environment, and remember that there is certainly still work to be done here in the European Union in fields such as biodiversity, the avoidance and recycling of waste and the sustainable use of resources. Exert more influence in the struggle to protect the global climate, because not only the United States but also China, India and Brazil must be motivated to commit themselves more firmly to this effort.
This would be the right course for the European Union; it would promote sustainable development and create jobs. It is wrong to perpetuate and even intensify the pursuit of the old roads to nowhere that have long been discredited."@en1
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