Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-23-Speech-3-010"
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"en.20070523.3.3-010"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Rübig, ladies and gentlemen, it is a double pleasure for me to speak here. On the one hand, it is apparent that one of the main dossiers of the German Presidency can potentially be brought to a successful conclusion; and, on the other hand, it is a personal pleasure for me to return to this familiar hemicycle, where I still feel at home.
Agreement between the Council and Parliament was extremely difficult to achieve. There were tough negotiations; but it was a fair fight. We should like to extend the warmest of thanks to the rapporteur for his constructive conduct of the negotiations, and to the chairmen of the committees for acting as mediators while at the same time standing in solidarity with Parliament. We should like to thank our colleagues in the Council, who endorsed this compromise with great difficulty. The compromise reached is necessary in terms of consumer policy, economically justifiable, and welcome from the European angle. It is necessary in terms of consumer policy because, basically, there was no way of escaping the conclusion that we were looking at market failure. There was no market in this field. Consumers had no choice as regards their tariff, and, basically, the fact of their crossing borders within the European Union was being used to charge high prices. That was unacceptable to us. Now consumers are being relieved of a huge burden, a fact I warmly welcome on behalf of the Council.
The compromise is also economically justifiable. The EU unanimously backs the internal market. The market in mobile phones, in particular, is very dynamic, and it works at domestic level, as everyone can see. For this reason, we set store by not introducing a uniform tariff for all roaming contracts in the EU, but instead imposing a ceiling to rule out abuse. The Council considered it very important that the ceilings did not fall below a certain level, to enable a suitably dynamic market to develop beneath these limits. We hope that enterprises and also consumers engage in sensible market operation beneath this Eurotariff, that this results in a greater variety of offers, and also that consumer behaviour orients itself accordingly.
The European Union has shown its capacity for action. The Council Secretariat, too, will make every effort to enable the Regulation to be published in the Official Journal as soon as possible – although a certain amount of time is required for this. A decision has to be taken by the Committee of Permanent Representatives and a formal decision by the Council. We hope we shall succeed in having it published in the Official Journal on 29 June, so that it can take effect accordingly in the summer recess.
I would be pleased if a broad consensus in favour of our compromise could be achieved in plenary today. As President-in-Office of the Council, I promise to do my utmost to ensure that the same happens in the Council, so that we have a Europe of results to show ahead of the important European summit."@en1
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