Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-02-08-Speech-1-136"
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"en.20100208.15.1-136"2
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"I urgently requested that this issue be discussed in plenary once more, not only because it concerns thousands of workers in my back yard, Antwerp in Flanders – you will see that many Members of the European Parliament will take the floor on this issue – but also, in particular, because it concerns a pan-European restructuring operation involving the closure of one plant and the loss of thousands of other jobs. Thousands of people – men and women and their families – face a gloomy future.
I believe that these people are looking to the European Union today with a mixture of hope and fear. Do they have good reason to hope? Perhaps. I should like to ask you, Commissioner and Commission, what your further plans are, as I make no secret of the fact that I am extremely disappointed with Commissioner Kroes’ further reiteration today that, in the event of the dossier coming up for discussion, she will apply the rules on State aid.
I am also disappointed with your response and position today, however. Naturally, if the closure ever goes ahead, we shall have to ensure that people are offered assistance. Yet today, we are looking for a quite different European Commission, one that takes this dossier to heart and plays the political role it should be playing. It can start by requiring Opel’s European management to put the business plan on the table at long last and to provide full access to the economic and other arguments forming the basis for this decision. After all, as I am sure you know, the European management in Antwerp, for example, has received very large amounts of aid and resources from both the Flemish and the Belgian authorities in recent years to enable it to remain competitive. Now all of that is being brushed aside, and there is no strong European Commission to do anything about it.
My second message, which is also a very definite request to the Commission, is that I should like to see the Commission taking much clearer action and being much less compromising in future when it comes to restructuring operations. If two businesses merge, the European Commission must be notified, so why can this not be the case with restructuring? Why can the Commission not apply the same economic and social criteria to restructuring operations? Only then will there be a clear vision for both industrial policy and a social Europe. That is what the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament is calling for."@en1
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