Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-13-Speech-2-014"
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"en.20071113.4.2-014"2
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".
Mr President, President of the Commission, Commissioners, you have presented us with 26 strategic initiatives and 61 priority initiatives. I am not going to comment on all of them in four minutes. In debates of this kind it must always be borne in mind that the Commission has a responsibility and a quite special role to play in the Community decision-making process. It is you who have the monopoly on legislative initiatives and it is you who wield the power by screening the various amendments, whether they come from Parliament or from the Council. You have huge responsibility for the type of result that we are able to obtain as far as Community legislation is concerned. I can therefore assure you that, as ever, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance is probably the most united of all the political groups in its support for this Community procedure, because I believe that the Commission has been entrusted with a formidable task in having to confront not only national interests but also the sensitivities of the various national governments.
To get straight to the heart of the matter there are three points that I would like to raise. The first is energy policy: 2007 has been a big year. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded and the March European Council adopted a number of objectives that in our view could have been more ambitious, but which we supported nevertheless. As you have pointed out, 2008 will now be a year for implementation. This is where some real vigilance will be called for on our part. We were really disappointed by the results on vehicle emissions. We believe that your approach to biofuels ignores the negative impact that this type of technology is having on our environment. We are of the view that in the second phase of emission permits we should be moving towards a bidding system rather than freely distributing what amount to nothing more than new financial assets. We are somewhat surprised that as far as the internalisation of transport policy costs is concerned you have only announced what amounts to no more than methodological studies. It appears to me that the economists have been debating this for at least 15 years and that the Commission could follow the example set by good national experience.
We also think that this thinking needs to be applied to all aspects of energy policy, and that you should resist the idea of making too much use of so-called ‘soft’ instruments in order to please different lobbies or to meet different governmental requests. We need to employ restrictive instruments because the example set by the car industry shows us that voluntary agreements do not really work. As regards renewable energies we do not believe it is a very good idea to introduce flexible arrangements between the Member States. Everyone should do their bit.
The second subject that I wish to raise concerns immigration policy. This is one area for which you have supreme responsibility. I recall the speech that Kofi Annan made to the European Parliament several years ago. It would be wonderful if the European Union could win the Nobel Peace Prize for a successful immigration policy. We are counting on you to see to it that such an immigration policy, which you have included in your work programme, and which has already commenced, does not result in the introduction of a common biometric passport for all Member States. I think that as well as creating a disastrous situation for people here, that would also damage the EU’s credibility in the eyes of the rest of the world.
Finally, the last point I wish to raise – and this surprises me, Mr Barroso – is the fact that your programme does not include anything on the international financial markets. If you want the citizens of the Community, or at least a large majority of them, to be more positively disposed towards globalisation and its various issues then the European Union, and the Commission in particular, cannot dissociate itself from the situation in the financial markets, the continued investigation of tax havens and our inability to debate issues surrounding the exchange rates between the euro, the Chinese yuan and the dollar.
I believe that people are waiting for the European Union to deliver ambitious initiatives that will ensure that the financial markets operate for the benefit of the economy and society, not the other way round. I am reminded of the debates that Parliament held on this subject at the start of the current legislative period. Various people now appear to have lost all sight of this. For this reason it seems important to me that you should re-launch such an initiative with the backing of Parliament."@en1
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