Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-09-15-Speech-2-164"
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"en.20090915.18.2-164"2
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"Mr President, Mr Barroso might recall my intervention when he came before our group last week. As I said then, Mr Barroso, I read your political guidelines for the new Commission with considerable interest and I actually found that much of the rhetoric contained in the guidelines reflects my own beliefs and political priorities. I am sure of many others on the Left as well.
Also, forgive us if we judge you on your track record. Laval did not happen yesterday. What have you done in the almost two years since the Laval judgment sent shock waves through the trade union movement?
One final question: will you commit yourself today to doing everything possible to bring about a proper gender balance in the next College of the Commission?
The problem is, however, that you used pretty much the same rhetoric when you came here five years ago to look for the Commission Presidency then. At that time, you made a number of promises in relation to social Europe on renewing the social agenda for five years that have not been met. You might recall, for example, saying five years ago on services of general interest: ‘I do not exclude the possibility of a framework directive’.
Now five years later, as you have said again today, the EU might establish a ‘quality framework for public and social services’. We are not quite sure what that means. We do know what a framework directive means and for us that is a very important commitment that we would like you to enter into. Telling us that you do not exclude the possibility of one is simply not enough this time.
When we looked at your document last week, we looked for specific concrete commitments, but we found virtually none. What we did find – thanks to Google – is that the guidelines themselves, presented as a transformational agenda, are, by and large, nothing more than a recycling of existing Commission texts and the existing policy agenda.
Three broad points on your guidelines:
Firstly, they simply do not address the seriousness of the severe unemployment and social crisis that we are facing and which will worsen in the months if not years to come.
Secondly, we think your words about a crisis exit strategy are premature. You have modified that in what you have said to us today. But what we should be talking about is an entry strategy, a strategy for positive intervention in the labour market, not just at Member State level but at European level.
Thirdly, your transformational agenda is the agenda of the past. The crisis is calling for much bolder and more far-sighted policies than you have in mind. Instead, what the number one priority of the new Commission must be is the launching of a modernised and ambitious new European social agenda.
I have listened to what you have said very carefully again today on the response to the Laval judgment in relation to the Posting of Workers Directive. You have said again today that an implementing regulation, without touching the directive, is the way to go. That simply will not work. The problem is in the directive itself which repeats over and over again that ‘Member States ‘may’…’. Unless the implementing regulation replaces or overtakes that directive, the problem of Laval will remain."@en1
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