Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-13-Speech-1-122"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20060313.18.1-122"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the framework conditions for European structural policy are undergoing dramatic change; globalisation is accelerating structural change, and businesses are facing ever-tougher competition. While the global market economy continues its triumphant progress, the choice of potential production sites increases. The logical consequence of this is that locations change with ever-greater speed, and that is when industry acts, with new sites opening up new markets in which it can sell its products, and the pressure of cost forcing it to move to countries where costs are lower – not only within the European Union but also to Asia or to Ukraine.
These business relocations are happening; they are a normal outward sign of structural change, and the EU should put no legal obstacles in their way. It is, however, no less clear that we cannot subsidise things that were decided long ago as a matter of business policy. No entrepreneur will move to another location just for the sake of a single grant; he will do it only if the long-term conditions in the new location are right, and that is why these relocation subsidies result in steering effects, which are precisely what we have to prevent in future, for European structural funds are too valuable for that.
There is another argument against helping firms to relocate. It does have an effect on people’s acceptance of the European idea if workers in a place from which a company has moved see their taxes used to pay for their jobs to go somewhere else.
We find it regrettable that both the Commission and the German Social Democrats deny that this sort of relocation support is going on. It is of course the case that European regional support gives incentives for these unnecessary steering effects. The simple reason why so few examples are known about is that the threshold for them to be reported is set far too high. We therefore call on the Commission to at last take seriously the suggestions from this House and from the Council of Ministers. What we are demanding is a regulation, enforceable at law, which would once and for all make it impossible for European funds to be wasted so pointlessly."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples