Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-13-Speech-1-121"
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"en.20060313.18.1-121"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to voice some criticisms of the report before us on relocation in the context of regional development. Throughout its history, Europe has been well acquainted with the phenomenon of what is referred to as company relocations. We are currently observing it, and it will certainly happen again in the future. In short, people and companies look for the best place in which to realise their ideas, services and products, and there is, was and will be nothing wrong with that. This is in fact the expression of rational behaviour that lies at the core of European civilisation. Fighting against economic rationality is the path of European poverty. Since its inception, the EU has been built on room for manoeuvre for the free movement of people, goods, services and capital, and that includes room for manoeuvre for European companies. Thanks to that liberalising policy, Western European countries have attained a very high standard of living; not by blocking their markets but precisely because they opened them up.
This report is proposing the complete opposite, a policy based on fresh barriers against the movement of capital, and that is something I cannot accept under any circumstances. The issue of European aid versus the free movement of capital within the EU really exists. The solution, however, is not to tighten the conditions for granting aid to businesses or to tie aid to the place in which the company operates. What we need instead is to put a definitive stop to European aid for businesses. Such investment has no economic justification and will only lead to the distortion of the European market. If the Commission is under the impression that ‘relocation’ poses a problem, it should pay much greater attention to improving conditions for entrepreneurs and businesses. It should think carefully whether businesses are not being driven out of Europe by the Commission’s own over-regulation. In my view, this is certainly what is happening at the moment. The European legislative burden is too great and should be cut back at the earliest opportunity. We will then see a flood of companies entering the EU and the growth of employment in the EU."@en1
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