Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2013-07-02-Speech-2-022-000"
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"en.20130702.5.2-022-000"2
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"Mr President, we keep debating unemployment and poor growth here, but what steps are we actually taking to solve this particular crisis?
That is why I would like to see President Barroso use the last few months of his term to take on those on the left and the Socialists who are actually preventing these reforms. In fact I have to admit that I am actually at a bit of a loss today because normally I like to stand here and reprimand President Barroso for stuff the Commission has done, or alternatively I like to denigrate the French Socialist government, but it seems to me that they are doing such a good job of slagging off each other that I am not sure I am actually required to interfere in this happy feast any more.
Frankly, some of the comments made by French Ministers in recent weeks have undermined their own credibility and demonstrated the desperate situation in which they find themselves. So they hit out at anybody and anything rather than take responsibility for their own poor decisions in France.
We now know that it is possible to overcome some vested interests. The long-term MFF budget has shown that change, even a little bit of change, is slightly possible in Europe.
The siren voices continue to argue that reducing the EU budget will somehow damage the economy in Europe. We all know that is not true. It will of course harm those that are dependent on EU handouts, such as the trade unions and the NGOs that the Commission funds. But does anybody outside the bubble really believe that we cannot reduce the budget in Europe and yet increase its value?
If we want to solve the EU’s economic crisis then we need to overcome those vested interests that stand in our way, that stop us from delivering a better Europe by constantly forcing us to deliver more Europe. We can do more to help Europe’s economy by doing less here in the Commission and in this Chamber.
We are of course taking some, but it is not nearly enough. We ask ourselves: why is that? It is because too often vested interests are obstructing the reforms that we desperately need in Europe. We fail to see that more laws, more initiatives, more red tape are actually harming businesses and stopping people from working. We need to understand that sometimes in Europe ‘less is more’.
Let me give you an example. This is from someone who works in a temporary work agency and actually deals with the agency workers directive. They said, and I quote: ‘In many cases drivers who are employed on a pay-as-you-earn basis are actually being stopped from working after their eleventh week as this is the point at which the EU regulations kick in’. People are actually being stopped from working because of the laws that we pass here in Europe.
The Commission’s own European vacancy monitor showed that after the Agency Workers Directive came into force, vacancies at Randstad, which is France’s leading temporary agency, fell by 20% in two months. This of course is legislation brought in to protect workers, but actually it persecutes them.
If we are serious about solving this problem then there are two good places to start. First of all we should scrap the laws that punish productivity, that damage entrepreneurship; secondly, we should open up markets so that enterprise is rewarded and not penalised. The best way to create more employment in Europe would be to create some unemployment in the European Commission – fewer officials dreaming up new rules and regulations; fewer pet projects; fewer vested interests standing in the way of the structural reform that we need.
The saying ‘less is more’ should of course apply to the EU, and that is why I fully support the Dutch Government’s recent efforts to draw a line in the sand to say that there are competences that we believe are better exercised closer to the people, that ever-closer union is not the answer to our problems in Europe. I am sure that Mr Verhofstadt will want to show his support for the position put forward by one of his own Liberal governments.
The problem is that we in this Parliament and officials in the Commission are dominated by those same vested interests. This Parliament seeks to extend its powers at every opportunity; Commission officials move their careers forward by formulating new ways to interfere in our lives here in Europe.
Ever-closer union has become synonymous with ever-more meddling regardless of whether it is the right thing to do, either for our economy or for our people. We will soon be perfectly harmonised, we will be perfectly equal in Europe. Unfortunately we will have harmonised unemployment and we will have equalised poverty across the Union.
There is an alternative, and that is to cut the red tape that binds us; to redirect our efforts and open up markets across Europe; to reward hard work. To do so of course will not be easy. There will be protests from many lobby groups, from trade unions and from others often funded by the EU itself, but by taking on those vested interests we will open to door to the economic reforms that we have to make."@en1
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