Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-02-14-Speech-1-037-000"
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"en.20110214.13.1-037-000"2
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"Mr President, thank you for your welcoming remarks. I, too, am delighted to be back here with you, as I am every month. I should like to thank Parliament, and Mrs Gebhardt in particular, for their impatience and their vigilance. I can understand why Parliament is being demanding with regard to the proper implementation of this directive, which was adopted just over four years ago. Mrs Gebhardt spoke of lengthy discussions here in Parliament. Discussions took place before that; they took place outside Parliament, too.
We are therefore going to continue to work in this spirit with the Member States and to verify that, as well as simply being transposed, the Services Directive is actually being implemented properly. Moreover, depending on what is covered in the debate that we are going to have now, I remain at Parliament’s disposal to provide it with other more precise answers concerning the monitoring of the implementation of this Services Directive.
I can recall some of the heated debates on this subject; they were often interesting and, at times, slightly irrational. Moreover, I have not forgotten, Mrs Gebhardt, the vital role that Parliament, spurred on by you and Mr Harbour, played in improving the Commission’s initial proposal and breaking the deadlock that we found ourselves in at the time. It did so while preserving the overall structure of the directive, which is aimed – and this is obviously one of the main issues at stake in the internal market – at boosting growth and employment, because it is clear today, ladies and gentlemen, that nine out of 10 new jobs created in the European economy are created in the services economy. I can also tell you that I am very keen for new jobs to be created in the industrial sector. This obviously raises other issues with regard to the European policies that we ought to promote in order to maintain an industrial manufacturing base. However, services are a key source of growth and employment.
With Mrs Gebhardt’s new report, Parliament has once again confirmed its commitment to this matter, and Mrs Gebhardt herself has shown that she is very single-minded, if I may say so. I personally am glad, on this occasion, that she is single-minded when it comes to monitoring the transposition and the proper implementation of this directive, which is a prerequisite for completing the internal market in services.
As I stand here before you, four years after the adoption of this directive, it has already produced tangible results. We have received, ladies and gentlemen, more than 1 000 notifications of changes in legislation within the Member States. At times, it has been global or framework texts that have themselves introduced sectoral changes within each country, or even each region. In fact, several thousand changes in national or regional legislation have already been made as a result of the impetus provided by this directive. We believe that there is still a great deal of potential, and we must therefore press ahead.
Mrs Gebhardt raised a very important issue, which concerns one of the tools of the Services Directive – the points of single contact. I fully support the ambitious approach that Parliament is taking to ensure that these contact points very quickly become genuine administrative portals enabling companies to complete all their procedures and formalities online – and this includes, Mrs Gebhardt, ladies and gentlemen, those that go beyond the scope of the Services Directive alone.
With this in mind, we are working with the Member States on the cross-border interoperability of electronic signatures. I shall also be presenting you, probably by the end of this year, with a text on electronic signatures and on the cross-border interoperability of electronic identities and documents. I also agree with you on the importance of providing points of single contact that are genuinely multilingual – an essential part of their added value – so that people can use them in their own language and can receive a response in their own language, including across borders, and so that we can therefore make this tool – the points of single contact – accessible, in particular, to small and medium-sized enterprises. Moreover, one of the keys to facilitating this administrative cooperation and developing the points of single contact, as you wish, is for us to improve the quality of electronic translations at the same time. We shall perhaps discuss this later on with regard to the patent.
I myself am engaged, within the College, and with my colleagues who are in charge of these various programmes – because they are split between several Directorates-General – in stepping up the research into, and development of, electronic programmes. This is to ensure that we have the highest quality, most sophisticated translations as soon as possible not only for the patent, but for other uses too, such as the points of single contact and the Internal Market Information System (IMI). It will make a big change for all of us here, who have to work in more than 23 languages, to be able to have a perfect translation thanks to these computerised and electronic programmes. I also share Parliament’s view concerning the need to train national officials so that they develop a true culture of administrative cooperation, where they do not already have one.
Mrs Gebhardt, we will also continue to promote the use of the IMI, which I mentioned just now. Today – I reviewed this matter recently – nearly 5 000 European authorities are registered in the IMI, and my aim is very simple: I want to turn the IMI into a kind of administrative Facebook, if I can use that expression, with a translation facility. Ladies and gentlemen, my portfolio includes three very important tools for bringing Europe closer to the citizens and closer to small and medium-sized enterprises. They are: the points of single contact, the IMI and the Internal Market Problem Solving Network (SOLVIT). Therefore, you can count on me; I shall even be working specifically on these three tools so as to provide them with resources, in particular, translation resources, but others too, and to ascertain how they are being implemented in each country.
Moreover, I am not content with just explaining matters to you here; I am also going to explain them in each of the capitals, and so, just as I promised, every week, I visit a European capital, and in each of those capitals, I hold a workshop with the national officials in charge of implementing our directives: on professional qualifications, services and public contracts. Each time, I ascertain how and by what means these tools – the points of single contact, the SOLVIT centre and the IMI – are being implemented and used. Thus, I was in Luxembourg last week and I shall be in Slovenia this week, to carry out this check with its officials, whom I need in order to ensure that the internal market functions properly."@en1
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