Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-16-Speech-3-301"
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"en.20051116.21.3-301"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the issue with which my report is concerned is fundamentally different in character from the things we have just heard addressed. It is not about how we deal with weapons at the international level, or about arms limitation, but rather about whether we want to make it possible for the procurement of military equipment to be liberalised within the European single market.
I would like to start by expressing my very warm gratitude for the input provided by those Members who had a hand in drawing up the report, whether as rapporteur in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, or as shadow rapporteur in the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy. My discussions and conversations with them have been a source of very useful suggestion, which have been incorporated into the report. I also want to thank the Commission for its very good cooperation, which involved it being willing to delay the adoption of the subsequent White Paper until after we had delivered our opinion. I am also grateful to the interested parties for taking part in our hearings and thereby helping to prepare the sector for these changes.
The topic is a decidedly delicate one, as the procurement of military equipment can be said to touch upon the very heart of national sovereignty. It was for that reason that the Treaty establishing the European Community, back in the 1950s, included a derogation clause safeguarding the interests of national security. Over the past decade, though, we have, progressively and continuously, moved closer together even on fundamental matters of security policy, and the debate on the two preceding reports is a demonstration of how we, in these areas, are taking a fundamentally global approach to policy.
The procurement market within the European Union remains, however, utterly fragmented, with every country having its own preferred suppliers and purveyors by appointment. Instead of competition, there is a fragmentation that prevents our industry from being competitive internationally and entails very high costs in the purchase of military equipment that might be available on more favourable terms elsewhere, and that is a burden on the wallets of the taxpayers who, ultimately, have to pay for it all.
It was for that reason that we, in the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection and the Committee on Foreign Affairs arrived, on parallel lines, at the conclusion that the time has come for us to venture a bold step. We endorse the Commission’s proposal that this derogation clause, Article 296, should be clarified and made more precise, and we do so because we have established that it is widely abused. This clause is used as a pretext for removing practically the whole of the military equipment procurement sector from the internal market. There is a black hole in the internal market, and that with a total expenditure of EUR 160 billion per annum.
We want the public to get the message that the mutual opening-up of procurement markets testifies, among other things, to the Member States’ trust in one another. Let us – we want to say to them – take a step forward that will make it possible for state expenditure to be cut back, and let us set in motion a process that will eventually make us more competitive and perhaps even enable us to free ourselves to some degree from certain dependencies on suppliers outside Europe! I need only mention the current procurement arrangements for the refuelling of aircraft or for guided missiles, where we are largely dependent on supplies from other markets.
Let me conclude with a few brief words on the amendments that have been submitted. I believe that the key to our reaching a common mind without regard to party boundaries on this matter has been that we said at the very outset that we would concentrate on the issue of the single market and would not allow the discussion to get bogged down in general policy issues relating to security, the armed forces and peacemaking. The result of this has been that Mrs Beer, from the Greens, and I, as a member of the CSU, began the deliberations with largely identical reports. These amendments, which are somewhat ideological in character, have made them less so. I therefore recommend that you endorse the report, but vote for none of the amendments except Amendment 5."@en1
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