Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-03-13-Speech-2-103-000"
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"en.20120313.7.2-103-000"2
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"Mr President, I am grateful to the Chair of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, Ms Berès, and the rapporteur, Ms Harkin, for giving the Presidency this opportunity to present the state of the proposal to extend the crisis derogation under the current European Globalisation Adjustment Fund, the EGF.
I would like to begin by recalling one important fact. The current EGF has not been repealed. It continues to function as decided by our two institutions back in 2006, and the authors of the questions suggest that the Council has come to the conclusion that the current crisis is over. I can assure you that is by no means the case. At the most recent meeting the other week, Heads of State or Government concluded that tackling unemployment and the social consequences of the current crisis was one of the main priorities for 2012. It is, of course, primarily up to each Member State to take the necessary measures and follow the policy it considers to be the most appropriate to combat unemployment. Even though this now happens within a strong European policy framework, the crisis derogation to the EGF was introduced for a limited time as a supplementary instrument for helping combat some of the consequences of the crisis.
When the Commission put forward its proposal to extend the mechanism, there was insufficient support within the Council. There were a number of reasons expressed by Member States as to why they were not ready to endorse the Commission’s proposal. In general, doubts over its added value persisted. Some Member States underlined that the labour market policies lie firmly within national competence. Others already have access to well-developed aid mechanisms at national level and consider the EGF contribution to be a useful but not essential complement to these mechanisms. Some felt it was inappropriate, at a time of national austerity, to introduce new unforeseen expenditure in the EU budget. These are just a few examples. Of course, there were also a significant number of Member States who supported the proposal.
Since the Commission presented its proposal in the middle of last year, the Polish Presidency made a tremendous effort to find a solution which would meet the concerns of all Member States. However, the EPSCO Council in December failed to reach agreement on any of the compromise proposals tabled. Since then, the Danish Presidency has made further attempts and tabled a new compromise, but even recent efforts to try to break the deadlock through direct contacts with Ministers failed to achieve an outcome.
As President, I regret that it was not possible to reach an acceptable compromise. However, we cannot, of course, oblige other Member States to change their positions. Under these conditions, we came to the conclusion that further negotiations on crisis derogation could hinder progress on the future EGF. There were good reasons for this. Already, early on in the discussions on the extension of the crisis derogation for the current EGF, it was underlined that the extensions would not pre-empt the negotiations on the future EGF.
As you know, these negotiations take place within the context of the wider negotiations on the new multiannual financial framework. We had a first round of discussions on the future EGF on 27 February and I can assure the European Parliament that the Council will debate this proposal on its own merits. Here in Parliament, you have had preliminary discussions in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, and discussions so far both within the Council and here in Parliament showed that there are serious doubts about several important aspects of the new EGF regulation, notably, the inclusion of the agricultural sector.
I would like to assure you of the commitment of the Danish Presidency to taking forward the discussions on the future EGF. I look forward both to hearing your views on this issue this morning as well as to the further work which will be needed between our two institutions as we seek to make progress in the negotiations."@en1
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