Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-02-Speech-2-011"
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"en.20080902.4.2-011"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, listening to the speeches delivered by the previous speakers – by Commissioner Špidla, by the President-in Office of the Council, Mr Bertrand, and by you, Mr Daul – one has the impression that all is well. You are progressing nicely, and 2008 will be remembered as the year when the European social model was relaunched.
My honourable colleague Paul Nyrup Rasmussen has presented us with a very good report. We need qualified majority voting on this issue, so that the Commission can launch an initiative for the regulation of hedge funds and private-equity firms. Who is it that refuses to support such a move? You, the European People’s Party, whose representatives on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs are against it.
This is why we need to spell out very clearly that the struggle for the European social model is also the struggle for a basic philosophy. Mr Bertrand rightly ascribed the success of the European Union to its having married economic progress with social progress. That was always the underlying philosophy in Europe – for the Christian Democrats too, by the way. For decades, these were two sides of the same coin, until the neo-liberal mainstream began to tell us in the early nineties that lower wages, longer hours and less say in company management were the basic recipe for faster economic growth. For decades, of course, there have been people – and they are still present in great numbers today, even within the Commission – who attach more importance to horse racing than to the European social model but are responsible here for the internal market and who have been telling us, and still tell us – the prime example being Mr Trichet, who does so at every press conference – that wages in Europe are too high. Perhaps they are in the case of board members at the European Central Bank, but not for ordinary workers in Europe.
We shall therefore have to ensure that a general change of political direction takes place, a change of direction that will actually put the European social model back where you want it, Mr Bertrand, so that every economic advance achieved by the European Union will also have a beneficial impact on the lives of all citizens of the European Union.
You are right, of course, in saying that the EU can only compete in the world, be it in Beijing or Brisbane, if we develop this internal market. We want to do that; we want an internal market that can perform. We want an efficient and competitive European continent. But the reason why we want it is to create wealth that accrues to everyone, not only to investors in major corporate groups, in large joint-stock companies and in the big banks.
As long as we have this philosophy in Europe that awards European prizes to people who boast, when presenting their companies’ performance figures at press conferences, of having made billions throughout Europe on which they do not pay any taxes in Europe, because their profits are European and not national and are therefore exempt from national taxation, and as long as we continue to put tens of thousands out of work to perpetuate this state of affairs and maintain our shareholders’ profits – as long as this remains the reality of the European social model, we can talk here as much as we like, but the people will never identify with this Europe.
We do wish, however, to consolidate the European ideal and to further the cause of integration. For this reason, let me remind the House that a European social model is judged by its fruits. The same applies to you, Mr Bertrand, in the Council and to you, Mr Daul, here in Parliament.
That all sounds very fine, but the reality is harsher. Yes, the real picture looks quite different. The real picture is one of gross social inequality in the European Union. Profits spiral ever higher while wage levels stagnate. The income gap has become an ever-widening chasm. The loss of purchasing power that has hit ordinary people in the European Union, compounded by the drastic increases in energy prices, is a veritable impoverishment programme. This is a problem that we must address in the European social model, and not just with fine words. What you are initiating, Mr Špidla, is good, and we welcome it.
Ladies and gentlemen, we shall be dealing in detail with our views on the various proposals. For this reason I can make a few basic remarks about what we expect of a European social model. Fifteen years ago, if people in the European Union – in whatever country – had the feeling that something was going wrong, that some long-established national standard was endangered, they responded by looking to Europe to put things right; they felt the need to rectify matters in the European framework, because people believed then that European rules in a European framework would provide protection transcending national boundaries.
Today, fifteen years later, just try telling anyone that we will put things right in Europe. It would strike fear into employees, because they believe that this Europe, in its present-day disposition, can no longer guarantee them social protection.
If you take the time to analyse the Irish referendum and the voting behaviour of young people, you will see these people saying that Europe is a great idea. But when they look at how it is organised and constituted today, they are not impressed with its organisation or its disposition. Since we are entering an election campaign, it is only right to ask why there was such optimism fifteen years ago about the future of social policy in Europe, and why there is such pessimism today. Our reply as Socialists must be that Europe is governed by the Right. You delivered a fine Socialist speech, Minister; what you said here was marvellous. But what line did your government take in the Council on the Working Time Directive?
Your governing party is a member of the European People’s Party, whose member parties provide the vast majority of the heads of government in the European Union. In the Commission, they provide an absolute majority of the Commissioners as well as the President of the Commission. The European People’s Party is the largest political group in this House, but, to hear you speak, one would think you had nothing at all to do with the stunted social development of Europe. Europe is governed by the Right and is being guided in the wrong direction, and that must be rectified in the European elections.
You will have a good opportunity to get us back on track when the time comes to implement the measures you have outlined. The European social model is one of our priorities, you said. For our group, it certainly is! What do people feel seriously threatened by in the European Union? Uncontrolled financial markets. Uncontrolled hedge funds and private-equity firms that buy some company or other, cherry-pick its assets and dump its employees on the streets – simply to maximise the investors’ profits."@en1
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