Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-05-22-Speech-2-369-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20120522.18.2-369-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, we are having yet another European summit. I make it the 22nd that we have had in the last two and a half years. Mr Verhofstadt said it was the 18th but it would not be the first time that he has got his numbers wrong!
How many more dinners and summits will it take before we actually get some action that will make a difference?
I do not know what else Mr Van Rompuy has done, but he has certainly been very good at calling summits. None of the others have made any material difference so why, we ask ourselves, should this one? The reason that they have all so far failed is that none of them has addressed the real problem which, of course, is the collapse of European competitiveness. I think all of us in this House have a common objective. We all, of course, want the old mantra of growth and jobs, yet we have very different views on how that should be achieved.
For the socialists, across several groups in this House, only more government spending can create growth. I fundamentally disagree. The socialist vision of growth is an illusion created at the expense of borrowing and tax rises, and it is totally irresponsible in the current climate. As my favourite politician, Margaret Thatcher, once said, the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of everybody else’s money. We cannot afford a return to the discredited socialist growth agenda of Keynesianism dressed up as more investment.
Economic growth does not need state intervention. In fact, very often state intervention actually restricts growth. Take, for example, the Agency Workers Directive. This well-meaning piece of legislation, introduced through this House, has resulted in a fall in the number of temporary workers being employed in France. The Working Time Directive actually stops people from working. In a crisis, it is utterly immoral. So-called social protection legislation in the EU is failing to protect us from the worst social injustice of all, which is unemployment. We risk having the best protected workforce in the world, but no workers.
More flexible labour markets are the way forward. EU leaders should ask which employment directive they can repeal immediately.
We also need, as others have said, a bonfire of red tape. Each piece of additional legislation acts like a pin in the body of our economy. It can survive a few, but eventually it will be killed by a thousand pinpricks. The Commission’s inertia-driven ‘better regulation’ agenda should be replaced by a politically driven deregulation agenda, and this Parliament can play a role here by spending more of our time considering how to repeal, refine and reform existing measures. The EU needs to do less and it needs to do it better.
I have talked about what we can do less of. What can we do better? Commissioners, the answer lies in the letter signed by 12 Heads of Government. They sent you a clear set of ideas for extending the single market, for pursing free-trade agreements, for a European research area, and no end of good proposals. Sadly, the reaction from Presidents Barroso and Van Rompuy was disappointing. They continue to fall back on the Europe 2020 agenda.
That agenda is lacking because it tries to be all things to all men. It contains some things to appeal to a liberal conservative like me, it has parts to appeal to socialists like Mr Swoboda, and even parts to appeal to a social democrat like Mr Verhofstadt. There are probably no parts that appeal to Nigel Farage, but then again the Commissioners are not miracle workers. Europe 2020 will not work unless it learns the lessons of the failed Lisbon strategy, which did not achieve its primary goal.
My message to the Commission is this: we need a strong, free-trade, pro-competition agenda from you. At the moment, the Commission is effectively rudderless. The letter showed you the way forward and yet you disregarded it. The reform that the EU needs will not come about from one additional dinner, but tomorrow’s meeting can make an important start. It should give the Commission a clear message that it wants to see a free-trade, deregulatory and pro-market agenda. It should tell the Commission to go away and rethink the next seven-year budget so that every euro focuses on added-value outputs, rather than simply increasing national contribution inputs. Most importantly, it should place the single market at the heart of our economic recovery. Unless we resolve our competitiveness crisis, we will never resolve the many other crises facing the EU."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples