Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-01-30-Speech-3-116"
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have come to the end of a long debate that has stretched over four legislative terms in the European Parliament, beginning in 1992 with the publication by the European Commission of its White Paper on the development of postal services, which was followed by the adoption of the first Postal Directive in 1997 and its revision in 2002; now, at the start of 2008, after more than 15 years, I hope we are poised to adopt jointly a rational set of rules that will help us to reconcile the interests of consumers, the interests of the companies that have hitherto enjoyed a monopoly in the provision of postal services, the interests of the competitors wishing to enter this lucrative market and the interests of those who are employed in the postal sector. We in the European Parliament have been working very hard to achieve these goals over the past months.
I must point out, Mr President, that the clock is fast – I have not been speaking for three and a half minutes yet!
I believe we have succeeded here in the European Parliament in achieving an acceptable compromise between all these interests. I should like to thank all those who helped to achieve it – my fellow Members of the European Parliament and particularly Brian Simpson, with whom a 14-year friendship was forged by our joint efforts in the realm of postal services. We have been tracking this important issue together here since 1994. I wish to thank the Commission, which has played a very constructive role, both in its proposals and at the negotiating table.
At this point, I am afraid I have to address my special thanks not to the current Slovenian Presidency but to the Portuguese Presidency of the Council, which succeeded in formulating a common position on 1 October last year.
I am especially proud, and we in the European Parliament can all be proud, of the fact that the Council, in its common position, embraced the outcome of our inter-group deliberations and incorporated more than 95% of it into the foundations of the common position. That is a great success for the European Parliament, and it shows that Parliament can resolve such complex issues as deregulation of the market in postal services, which is further justification for the additional powers entrusted to it by the Reform Treaty.
Accordingly, in the committee discussions prior to second reading, we tried to identify areas of the common position to which we could make improvements. We did not make life easy for ourselves, because every compromise inevitably has some aspect here or there where there might be some scope for improvement. In December, however, we in the Transport and Tourism Committee, in an overwhelming vote of approval, established that all the points to which Parliament attached importance had actually been taken into account by the Council and that we could not make anything better. Any amendment would have been a retrograde step.
This is why your rapporteur is now able to say that the recommendation made by a large majority of the lead committee is that the common position be adopted without amendment, and I should be delighted if that were to happen tomorrow. We would also have set an example by wrapping up this complex issue of the liberalisation of postal services, which has exercised this House for 15 years, without once having recourse to the conciliation procedure. Let me just remind the House that we have always managed to reach agreement at second reading. To do so again would be the icing on the cake at the end of a long legislative process. I therefore ask for your support and reiterate my thanks to all those who have cooperated very constructively in this process."@en1
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