Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-11-14-Speech-2-202"
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"en.20061114.36.2-202"2
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"Mr President, Commissioners, researchers into time found out this past week that the second half of life passes much more quickly than the first, and that which is true of life is also, of course, true of the lifetimes of legislatures, so, since your Commission has not much time left, it should be all the more ambitious in its approach to doing its work. What that means in terms of the work programme is that it ought to have been the prelude to a final spurt, aiming high and promising speed. Can that, though, be said of this document? The Liberals and Democrats take the view that it cannot, for it ushers in nothing of the sort.
Let me begin, though, by talking about the good things we have found in your programme, like the focus on the reduction of bureaucracy, on the assessment of the costs that legislation will entail, on simplification, in other words the emphasis on better lawmaking – and certainly on less of it; that is a very good thing to aim at, and in that respect we are wholeheartedly behind you. What I want to say for the benefit of those who fear that the EU is turning into a neo-liberal, completely deregulated market economy – and in saying it, I will also highlight Mr Poettering’s spontaneous applause for something Mr Schulz mentioned as an example of what the Grand Coalition is all about – is that those who think the EU is a neo-liberal market economy probably also think that Cuba is a democracy.
Now for my second point: you prioritised communication with the public, and that, too, is something we think is a good thing; we are glad that you are doing this, for, if the EU loses its basis and fails to build a citizens’ Europe, then it will not achieve anything worth mentioning either. The EU needs the public as its constant partner in dialogue; it is on them that a single European Union will be founded.
If I may turn to the structure of the document – and Mr Schulz should read it more carefully – it differs substantially from last year’s, in that it is clear how the text and its annex fit together, whereas their failure to do so last year was something of which we were critical. We urged to you to make the connection between the two clear, and you have managed to do so, so many thanks for that. It even specifies the legal basis for each legislative initiative, and that, too, makes a great deal of difference – and you provide explanations of them, which makes the whole thing so much more manageable. Why, though, are the existing legal acts, the ones to be continued in 2007, not listed alongside them? Why, too, does the structure not make it even clearer what is about legislation and what is not? Why, then, are you – in essence – changing the picture?
Let me add something on the subject of multilingualism. I have heard speculations in this House to the effect – Mr Barroso – that this was your very subtle way of highlighting the possibility of there being too many commissioners, and that this portfolio was intended to show this up in, so to speak, a symbolic way.
In the course of this debate, my colleagues will be discussing the various policy areas, energy, climate change and legal policy among them, but I would like to take this opportunity to give you an idea of what overall impact your programme has had on our group. We very definitely see ourselves as having the role of accompanying you in your work in a spirit of constructive criticism, and that, of course, means cooperating with you, but with an emphasis on constructive criticism.
We see this programme as a puzzle with many individual pieces, one that cannot really be put together in such a way as to produce a big picture. We cannot find in it any clear policy guidelines, nor any answers; not even attempts at answers to the big questions facing the EU in the shape of enlargement and the constitutional treaty. Nor can we understand why it is that there is not one word in the whole document about humanitarian aid and help with development, areas in which the EU is the biggest player on earth, so why are they not mentioned? Even though your Commission has not achieved much – to put it politely – where the completion of the internal market is concerned, you are carrying on down the same path, and there is no evidence we can see of a holistic and comprehensive approach.
Innovation, too – which is quite crucial to Europe, being at the heart of the Lisbon Strategy – is mentioned, so to speak, only in passing and in terms of the European Institute of Technology and the Seventh Research Framework Programme. Our view is that what innovation needs most of all is freedom and the right conditions rather than institutions and more support measures, which tend to take us in the wrong direction.
This year’s programme does not, in fact, have a title. Why not, then? It does rather give the impression that not only are the pieces of the puzzle difficult to put together, but also that some of them may well be missing."@en1
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