Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-02-01-Speech-4-015"
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"en.20070201.3.4-015"2
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".
Madam President, this report is a contradiction in terms. Governments cannot micro-manage enterprise. Since when has the European Union initiated anything that improves trade, minimises costs, cuts red tape, generates new wealth, creates new jobs, frees up enterprise? When ever? Most governments can hope to contribute to economic growth only by clearing the decks of obstacles and creating an enterprise-free environment. Government ought to be about enabling people and their initiative to thrive. After that it should stand well back.
The UK has a huge, permanent and growing deficit with the EU. Does anyone here seriously imagine that by seizing control over company law relating to SMEs, the European Union will change or improve that situation? Do you really imagine that possible, especially as these proposals are based on German and French ideas of a social market?
I endorse what Mr Bloom has just said. How many of you here have ever started a new business at your own risk? Created jobs? Funded it for yourselves and successfully run it for, let us say, 20 years? How many of you have done that? How many people on that committee have done that? How many of you know what it takes to start a new business in the UK? Well, I will tell you. Less than a hundred pounds, ten minutes on the phone and you can do business anywhere. Compare that with these proposals. We have centuries of company law in the UK, thank you very much. And it works just fine. We also have SMEs trading all over the world and they do just fine. Most of their nightmares come from past misguided attempts by the EU to ‘help’ with trade on the Continent. Most of that ‘help’ merely interferes with their activities, and the idea of yet more ‘help’ will be greeted with horror.
Over the years we have seen masterpieces of unintended consequences from this place. There is the Working Time Directive, which finally proved to a business friend of mine that the EU was clinically insane. There is the drive for a level playing field, the very antithesis of wealth and job creation, which totally depends on finding differences. And now we have got the licensing of authorised economic operators, which hugely benefits those who qualify and undermines everyone else with extra costs and bureaucracy. Even the Socialist British Government has figured out that this proposal is expensive and dangerous nonsense and it belongs in the bin."@en1
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