Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-02-14-Speech-2-202"
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"en.20060214.26.2-202"2
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".
Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I would like, first of all, to extend warm congratulations to Mrs Gebhardt on the hard work she has done so far. I am simply in awe. I should also like to thank the members of the other groups. I think that we should be proud of the work we have done in the last few weeks. Nothing has been discussed in closed meetings or in subterranean vaults; there has been every opportunity for open debate.
I am also indebted to the members of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. We are indeed sending a strong message, because this House now has a great responsibility. We must prove that it is possible to create an internal market for services in a bid to fully develop our social model. Accordingly, we must vote for a directive that leaves social dumping well and truly behind. That also echoes one of the messages which the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has sent out. I think that the people in the streets of Strasbourg can go along with those messages, and so can most of our fellow MEPs.
First of all, I think there is enough material on the table, such as the full observation of labour legislation, social protection, collective labour agreements and industrial relations, including collective actions, on which this House can build in order to provide absolute guarantees.
Secondly, my committee has said that the Services Directive should under no circumstances undermine existing European social provisions. The Posting of Workers Directive, in particular, is of course a sensitive issue in this respect. Very often, the Services Directive is seen as giving
to the phasing out of workers’ labour conditions and to wage cuts, and in some countries – quite a number in fact – incidents have been reported lately that are the result of fraudulent practices. We have seen examples with Laval in Sweden, Struik Foods in Belgium, and Irish Ferries, but there are many more.
Invariably, these practices are simply illegal, but as the Services Directive threatens to make inspection even more difficult, it is important that we clarify that Articles 24 and 25 are deleted while the Services Directive remains fully in force.
That is not the end of it, though. Indeed, Mr McCreevy, we will need to take measures in order to grant
employers better access to information and counter bureaucratic measures, but Commissioner, we will also need to take measures in order to ensure that the legislation on the posting of workers, which is in theory sound, is observed. It is too easy to side-step this legislation and there are too many instances of misuse.
Thirdly, my committee has spelled out that something really needs to be done about the scope of this directive. It is a good thing that there is already consensus to remove social services, health services, temporary employment agencies and security services from this directive, for they work in a completely different manner. In fact, my committee took the view that all services of general economic interest should be excluded, for the simple reason that they have no commercial motive, but that it is the intention, first and foremost, to provide a service of general interest with it, in other words guarantee basic human rights. I think it would be good if these could be deleted from the directive after all.
I can be brief about the country of origin principle. According to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, this principle is unacceptable. I think that the compromise that is on the table is sound, because it allows countries where the service is provided to continue to take legislative measures for the benefit of general interest.
By way of conclusion, I hope that, on Thursday, this House will be able to send a strong message – in the shape of a new and completely overhauled text – to the Commission and the Council about the radical social adjustment to the Commission’s original document of which this European Parliament is in favour, for only then will we be able to persuade public opinion that what this House has produced is not a licence for social dumping."@en1
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