Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-13-Speech-1-183"
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"en.20060313.22.1-183"2
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"Mr President, even if mutual understanding is sometimes made rather difficult by our linguistic differences, it does make sense that it should be the competent committees of this House that work through the Commission’s reports, assessing and debating them. This matter is meant to be handled by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, but this debate, and the question on this point, are pre-empting its deliberations, and that I really do think is something we can do without; there may be reasons for it, but it is, I think, something we can do without.
Let me start by saying that the Commission communication, which is meant to help do away with the transitional period for the free movement of workers, is, I think, still defective in terms of its substance and – in the form in which it is presented to us – not yet watertight in economic terms. Nor are the authors of today’s question looking at the facts from the right angle when they talk in terms of the citizens of the ten new Member States being put at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the nationals of third countries. The fact is that, in Germany, people from the ten new Member States are 3% more likely to be in work than those from third states. In Austria, the difference stands as high as 6%. The advantage enjoyed by the ten new States is even more pronounced in Great Britain and Ireland. More to the point, data relating to only one year since accession cannot serve as a credible basis for a prognosis of medium and long-term changes in the labour market of the kind that the Commission is putting forward.
When one considers the period to which the evaluation refers, the conclusion at which the communication arrives, namely that the opening-up of the labour market has a positive effect on economic growth and employment, is quite simply wrong. In 2005, there was markedly less economic growth in the EU of 25 than in 2004. This was particularly the case in the United Kingdom, where there was a 1.4% decline and where immigration was ten times greater than the British Government had predicted. In contrast to preceding years, there was also scarcely any reduction in unemployment, and so I call on the Commission to commission, as soon as possible, a study examining worker migration and all the effects associated with it, and doing so in a value-free way.
That will be beneficial not only to the Commission, but also in terms of continued rational dialogue. I would add that, while I too would like to see an early reduction in the transitional periods, that will require good accompanying measures in a suitable framework, and the revision of the Posting of Workers Directive. That would be to the benefit of all concerned, in that it would allay one side’s fears and concerns, and make both sides better able to engage in dialogue, but the sort of debate we are having today I regard, quite simply, as wrong."@en1
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