Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-13-Speech-2-016"
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"en.20070313.6.2-016"2
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".
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, our group believes the Commission has done a number of good deeds. We nevertheless hope that in its remaining time in office the Commission, together with the European Parliament, will be an even stronger driving force for the European Union’s development. We will fully support it when the Council hesitates and procrastinates and does not really want to take Europe forward.
I would like to begin with a positive example, energy policy, and in this connection of course climate policy, a subject that is very close to your heart. It was absolutely right to insist that there must be binding targets, especially for renewable energies. It was equally correct to look for a pragmatic solution in the matter of competitiveness. So far as nuclear technology is concerned, it was absolutely right to accept that there are different approaches. There is one thing I would like from the Commission here, however, something that may perhaps reconcile the different approaches, namely a high standard of safety and also corresponding obligations on nuclear power plants and the countries that use nuclear technology to provide information. I would like the Commission to come forward with proposals on this.
In energy foreign policy, too, it is important to press on further, on the one hand saying we want to diversify and on the other supporting diversification. It is also extremely important to nominate the Commission coordinators who will ensure that we forge a variety of links for energy supplies. If the Polish Government believes it needs to develop an energy policy together with Ukraine and some countries of the southern Caucasus, then I hope the Commission will get on with developing an all-European energy policy.
Secondly, also on energy foreign policy: I know that the Commission is making preparations for cooperation with the Black Sea and Mediterranean regions. There, too, it is important that the Commission is not hampered by the Council in its proposals – for cooperation in energy, for migration policy and especially not for visa policy. I was very sorry that the Commission did not object when the Member States originally went so far as to tighten visa policy for our neighbours by demanding higher fees. I hope it will be successful in negotiating a sensible visa policy with all our neighbours, especially of course the Balkans.
Finally, I would like to come to the matter that lies close to our hearts: social competence. Mr Nassauer is not wrong in saying why many people in Europe are sceptical about the European Union, the Commission and even the European Parliament. It is also because the social dimension is underexposed in the Commission’s work. You admit it yourself: in the most recent documents you have published, whether about the internal market for the citizens or social reality stocktaking in Europe, you write quite clearly why this scepticism and this detachment have come about, saying that there is no point in the internal market unless the ecological and social consequences are seen and these aspects are also strengthened. But when I look at the actual proposals, they contain too little of this social component. When I look at two studies recently published in Europe, one about women’s pay on the labour market and the other about poverty, then it is a sign of our inadequacy that we have poverty again in Europe and that the differences between men’s and women’s pay are still so great.
The social task has not therefore been completed, and so if we are for the internal market, the social component must also be included. If the left and the right have recently had election results that in fact stem from social ills and the feeling that the social aspect is being overlooked, that we are again pursuing a narrow-minded national economic policy and we believe that is the way to deal with globalisation, it is also because we have not sent the citizens enough signals saying ‘yes to the internal market’ and ‘yes to social Europe’. That is very important for us and we would like the Commission to do more here."@en1
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