Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-25-Speech-2-012"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20051025.3.2-012"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
". – Mr President, on Thursday our national leaders convene in London to discuss what sort of Europe we want to build. A Europe that is open to the world, dynamic and competitive, or one which seeks to shelter its industry and workforce from globalisation? A Europe which can offer security, prosperity and opportunity to its citizens, or one which, enslaved to the precepts of the past, slides further into recession?
This debate is fundamental to Europeans; it must be conducted honestly, rationally and directly. It is therefore disappointing that those who have brought Commissioner McCreevy and President Barroso here today seem more interested in stalling debate than furthering it, perhaps for the sake of a few more votes in the upcoming Swedish election. They accuse the Commission of being off-centre. Have they not noticed that the centre of opinion has shifted? Their political manoeuvring aims not only to derail the Services Directive; it is aimed at one of the fundamental pillars of the Treaty: the free movement of persons and freedom of establishment.
Mr McCreevy should not be made the scapegoat for their scepticism. As Commissioner for the Internal Market, he has a duty to defend it against its detractors. Nor should his comments be seen as an attack on the Swedish social model, which Liberals have defended for its ability to balance the brutality of the marketplace with a sizeable social safety net. They should be seen as an attack on the Swedish Builders Federation’s hypocrisy, xenophobia and protectionism.
Laval bid in a fair and open competition for that contract, fulfilling public procurement criteria. The company has a collective agreement with its workers, just as Swedish employers have with theirs. What is more, when challenged by the unions over labour rates, Laval offered to raise its wages to the level agreed by the Swedish collective agreement. However, that was not good enough for the union. It demanded that the rates should be the Stockholm average, rather than the Swedish national average. Finally, in a breathtaking lack of worker solidarity, that union prevented work from going ahead, which led to the company withdrawing from the contract and filing for bankruptcy. Now Latvian workers are out of a job thanks to the Swedish trade unions.
Is that situation the fault of Laval, or is it the fault of a syndicate which puts protecting Swedish jobs ahead of the common market principles we have signed up to?
It is not by turning inwards and embracing protectionism that we will overcome sluggish economic growth and compete with China and India. The British historian James Anthony Froude once wrote that the practical effect of a belief is the test of its soundness. What better rebuke to the defenders of protectionism than this sorry affair? Perhaps we should not be surprised that Liberal economic and social thought is in the ascendant. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternatives."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples