Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-02-01-Speech-4-030"

Predicate	Value (sorted: default)
rdf:type	lpv_eu:Speech⁶
dcterms:Date	"2007-02-01"^^xsd:date⁶
dcterms:Is Part Of	lp_eu:Acordul privind achiziţiile publice (AAP) (dezbatere)⁶
dcterms:Language	"en"^^xsd:language⁶
lpv:document identification number	"en.20070201.4.4-030"⁶
lpv:hasSubsequent	lp_eu:2007-02-01-Speech-4-031⁶
lpv:speaker	lp:Caroline Lucas⁶
lpv:spoken text	". Madam President, congratulations! It is very good to see you in the Chair. Commissioner McCreevy, I too should like to start off by talking about how best we support small and medium-sized enterprises. I am very pleased that there seems to be a concern right across the different political groups of this House. I think we all share that. I would like to ask first of all for some clarification of remarks made by the French Trade Minister, Christine Lagarde, when she came to Parliament’s Committee on International Trade just last week. She spoke very passionately and rightly, I believe, about the importance of defending small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe. And yet you, Commissioner, seem to have a very different view of the role of SMEs and how best to support them. Guaranteeing better access to public procurement contracts for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises is essential. They represent 75 million jobs in the Union and 50% of Community GNI, and they are a vital component of thriving local and regional economies all around the EU. But it seems that the Commission is voluntarily giving up the right to support its SMEs. There are already five countries– Canada, the US, Israel, Japan and South Korea – that will introduce provisions into their legislation which give privileged access to SMEs for public procurement, and yet the EU, bizarrely, has decided it has no interest in standing up for its own SMEs. So Commissioner, can you really justify this position? For the EU to forego the right to a level playing field which would allow SMEs to have an equal opportunity to compete like the large multinationals seems both extraordinary and indeed unacceptable. Surely we too should be using the renegotiation of the GPA in Geneva to break down the WTO barriers which prevent Member States from implementing a privileged access measure for SMEs should they so wish. We too should be arguing for derogations as part of the revised GPA to allow us to bring in preferential measures, and by doing this we are simply restoring equality of treatment in order to prevent the large multinational corporations from having all of the advantages. I very much regret as well that we have not had the opportunity for a prior debate really in Europe about whether it is appropriate to try to extend international trade rules to cover government procurement at all. Many would argue that government procurement has little or nothing to do with traditional matters of trade, tariffs and quotas, and that it is an unacceptable area for negotiations at the WTO, because subjecting government procurement at the national, local or regional level to one-size-fits-all rules at a global level on how taxpayers’ funds are spent I think destroys citizens’ reasonable expectations that they should have a level of democratic accountability over how their money is spent. Essentially, taxpayers’ money is different from private, corporate money, and citizens rightly expect that they should have the right, for example, to lobby to cut off expenditure on companies that were doing business in South Africa when there was apartheid, or to disqualify companies with bad labour or environmental records. I believe we have a really important role to play in defending local sourcing and procurement as a vital instrument of local employment and industrial policy."@en⁴
lpv:spokenAs	substitute; Delegation for relations with Israel (2004-09-15--2007-03-13)²³ member; G/EFA (2004-07-20--2009-07-13)²³ unknown; Green Party (2004-07-20--2009-07-13)²³ member; INTA (2007-01-31--2009-07-13)²³ member; Delegation for relations with the Palestinian Legislative Council (2004-09-15--2007-03-13)²³ substitute; ENVI (2007-01-31--2009-07-13)²³
lpv:translated text	"Madam President, congratulations! It is very good to see you in the Chair. Commissioner McCreevy, I too should like to start off by talking about how best we support small and medium-sized enterprises. I am very pleased that there seems to be a concern right across the different political groups of this House. I think we all share that. I would like to ask first of all for some clarification of remarks made by the French Trade Minister, Christine Lagarde, when she came to Parliament’s Committee on International Trade just last week. She spoke very passionately and rightly, I believe, about the importance of defending small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe. And yet you, Commissioner, seem to have a very different view of the role of SMEs and how best to support them. Guaranteeing better access to public procurement contracts for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises is essential. They represent 75 million jobs in the Union and 50% of Community GNI, and they are a vital component of thriving local and regional economies all around the EU. But it seems that the Commission is voluntarily giving up the right to support its SMEs. There are already five countries– Canada, the US, Israel, Japan and South Korea – that will introduce provisions into their legislation which give privileged access to SMEs for public procurement, and yet the EU, bizarrely, has decided it has no interest in standing up for its own SMEs. So Commissioner, can you really justify this position? For the EU to forego the right to a level playing field which would allow SMEs to have an equal opportunity to compete like the large multinationals seems both extraordinary and indeed unacceptable. Surely we too should be using the renegotiation of the GPA in Geneva to break down the WTO barriers which prevent Member States from implementing a privileged access measure for SMEs should they so wish. We too should be arguing for derogations as part of the revised GPA to allow us to bring in preferential measures, and by doing this we are simply restoring equality of treatment in order to prevent the large multinational corporations from having all of the advantages. I very much regret as well that we have not had the opportunity for a prior debate really in Europe about whether it is appropriate to try to extend international trade rules to cover government procurement at all. Many would argue that government procurement has little or nothing to do with traditional matters of trade, tariffs and quotas, and that it is an unacceptable area for negotiations at the WTO, because subjecting government procurement at the national, local or regional level to one-size-fits-all rules at a global level on how taxpayers’ funds are spent I think destroys citizens’ reasonable expectations that they should have a level of democratic accountability over how their money is spent. Essentially, taxpayers’ money is different from private, corporate money, and citizens rightly expect that they should have the right, for example, to lobby to cut off expenditure on companies that were doing business in South Africa when there was apartheid, or to disqualify companies with bad labour or environmental records. I believe we have a really important role to play in defending local sourcing and procurement as a vital instrument of local employment and industrial policy."@cs¹ "Fru formand! Tillykke! Det er virkelig godt at se Dem i formandsstolen. Kommissær McCreevy, jeg vil også gerne starte med at tale om, hvordan vi bedst kan støtte de små og mellemstore virksomheder. Det glæder mig, at det tilsyneladende er noget, som vi lægger vægt på på tværs af de forskellige politiske grupper i Parlamentet. Det er vi vist alle enige om. Først vil jeg gerne have præciseret nogle bemærkninger fra den franske handelsminister, Christine Lagarde, som hun fremsatte i Parlamentets Udvalg om International Handel i sidste uge. Hun talte meget passioneret og rigtigt, mener jeg, om betydningen af at forsvare de små og mellemstore virksomheder i Europa. og alligevel har De, hr. kommissær, tilsyneladende et helt andet syn på SMV'ernes rolle, og hvordan man bedst kan støtte dem. Det er vigtigt at sikre innovative små og mellemstore virksomheder bedre adgang til offentlige indkøbskontrakter. De tegner sig for 75 millioner arbejdspladser i Unionen og 50 % af Fællesskabets BNI, og de spiller en vital rolle for blomstrende lokale og regionale økonomier over hele EU. Men det lader til, at Kommissionen frivilligt giver afkald på retten til at støtte sine SMV'er. Der er allerede fem lande - Canada, USA, Israel, Japan og Sydkorea - der vil indføre bestemmelser i deres lovgivning, som giver SMV'er forrang ved offentlige indkøb, og alligevel har EU underligt nok besluttet, at man ikke er interesseret i at gå i brechen for sine egne SMV'er. Så hr. kommissær, kan De virkelig forsvare den holdning? At EU giver afkald på retten til at skabe lige betingelser, der vil give SMV'erne mulighed for at konkurrere med de store multinationale selskaber på lige vilkår, forekommer både usædvanligt og helt uacceptabelt. Vi burde da benytte genforhandlingen af GPA i Genève til at bryde de WTO-hindringer ned, som forhindrer medlemsstaterne i at gennemføre foranstaltninger vedrørende privilegeret adgang for SMV'er, hvis de måtte ønske dette. Vi burde også argumentere for undtagelser som led i den reviderede GPA for at give os mulighed for at indføre præferenceforanstaltninger, og ved at gøre dette ville vi blot genindføre ligebehandling for at hindre de store multinationale selskaber i at få alle fordelene. Jeg beklager også i høj grad, at vi ikke har fået mulighed for en forudgående debat i Europa om, hvorvidt det overhovedet er hensigtsmæssigt at prøve at udvide de internationale samhandelsregler til at omfatte offentlige indkøb. Man vil sige, at offentlige indkøb ikke har meget om overhovedet noget med traditionelle spørgsmål om samhandel, told og kvoter at gøre, og at det er uacceptabelt at forhandle om disse spørgsmål inden for WTO, for jeg tror, at hvis offentlige indkøb på nationalt, lokalt og regionalt plan underkastes fælles, overordnede regler for, hvordan skatteydernes penge skal bruges, vil det ødelægge borgernes rimelige forventning om, at de bør have en vis demokratisk indflydelse på, hvordan deres penge skal bruges. Skatteydernes penge er grundlæggende noget andet end private midler og virksomhedernes midler, og borgerne har en berettiget forventning om, at de f.eks. skal have ret til at udøve lobbyvirksomhed for at lukke for udgifter til virksomheder, der drev virksomhed i Sydafrika, mens der var apartheid, eller udelukke virksomheder, der lader hånt om arbejdsmarkeds- eller miljølovgivning. Jeg mener, at vi har en virkeligt vigtig rolle at spille i forsvaret for lokale indkøb og leverancer som et vigtigt instrument for lokal beskæftigelse og erhvervspolitik."@da² ". Frau Präsidentin, Gratulation! Es ist sehr gut, Sie im Vorsitz zu sehen. Herr Kommissar, auch ich möchte zu Beginn darüber sprechen, wie wir kleine und mittlere Unternehmen am besten unterstützen können. Ich bin sehr erfreut, dass dies offensichtlich ein Anliegen aller Fraktionen in diesem Haus ist. Ich denke, das ist uns allen gemeinsam. Zunächst möchte ich um die Erläuterung einiger Bemerkungen der französischen Handelsministerin Christine Lagarde bitten, die sie erst letzte Woche im Ausschuss für internationalen Handel geäußert hat. Sie sprach sehr leidenschaftlich und meines Erachtens auch zu Recht darüber, wie wichtig es ist, die kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen in Europa zu schützen. Doch Sie, Herr Kommissar, scheinen eine völlig andere Ansicht dazu zu vertreten, welche Rolle die KMU spielen und wie sie am besten zu unterstützen sind. Es ist unbedingt notwendig, für innovative kleine und mittlere Unternehmen einen besseren Zugang zu öffentlichen Aufträgen zu gewährleisten. Sie stehen für 75 Millionen Arbeitsplätze in der Union und 50 % des BNE der Gemeinschaft, und sie bilden einen wichtigen Bestandteil der erfolgreichen lokalen und regionalen Wirtschaftsstrukturen in der gesamten EU. Doch wie es aussieht, gibt die Kommission das Recht auf Förderung ihrer KMU freiwillig auf. Mit Kanada, den USA, Israel, Japan und Südkorea planen bereits fünf Länder gesetzliche Bestimmungen, mit denen KMU einen bevorrechtigten Zugang zu öffentlichen Aufträgen erhalten, doch die EU hat eigenartigerweise beschlossen, dass sie kein Interesse daran hat, sich für ihre KMU einzusetzen. Können Sie diese Haltung wirklich rechtfertigen, Herr Kommissar? Es scheint sowohl ungewöhnlich als auch völlig inakzeptabel, dass die EU auf das Recht verzichtet, gleiche Wettbewerbsbedingungen zu schaffen, die ihren KMU Chancengleichheit im Wettbewerb mit den großen multinationalen Konzernen gewähren würden. Sicherlich sollten doch auch wir die Neuaushandlung des GPA in Genf dazu nutzen, die WTO-Schranken abzubauen, die Mitgliedstaaten daran hindern, KMU gegebenenfalls einen bevorrechtigten Zugang zu gewähren. Auch wir sollten uns doch darum bemühen, dass das geänderte Übereinkommen Ausnahmeregelungen vorsieht, damit wir Präferenzmaßnahmen einleiten können, denn auf diese Weise stellen wir lediglich die Gleichbehandlung wieder her, um zu verhindern, dass die großen multinationalen Konzerne alle Vorteile auf ihrer Seite haben. Außerdem bedauere ich sehr, dass wir keine Gelegenheit hatten, in Europa im Vorfeld eine Debatte darüber zu führen, ob es überhaupt angebracht ist zu versuchen, internationale Handelsregeln auf das öffentliche Beschaffungswesen auszudehnen. Viele würden sagen, dass das öffentliche Beschaffungswesen wenig oder nichts mit traditionellen Handels-, Zoll- und Quotenfragen zu tun hat und dass dieser Bereich nicht auf die WTO-Ebene gehört, denn das öffentliche Auftragswesen internationalen Einheitsvorschriften auf globaler Ebene für die Verwendung von Steuergeldern zu unterwerfen, würde meines Erachtens die berechtigten Erwartungen der Bürger zunichte machen, dass sie eine gewisse demokratische Kontrolle darüber haben sollten, wie ihr Geld ausgegeben wird. Steuergelder sind doch etwas ganz anderes als Privat- oder Unternehmenskapital, und die Bürger gehen zu Recht davon aus, dass sie das Recht haben sollten, beispielsweise gegen Ausgaben für Unternehmen zu protestieren, die Geschäfte mit Südafrika gemacht haben, als dort die Apartheid herrschte, oder Unternehmen wegen schlechter Arbeitsbedingungen oder Umweltsünden auszuschließen. Meines Erachtens fällt uns eine entscheidende Rolle dabei zu, das lokale Beschaffungswesen als grundlegendes Instrument der lokalen Beschäftigungs- und Wirtschaftspolitik zu verteidigen."@de⁹ "Κυρία Πρόεδρε, συγχαρητήρια! Χαίρομαι πολύ που σας βλέπω στην Προεδρία. Επίτροπε McCreevy, θα ήθελα και εγώ να ξεκινήσω αναφερόμενη στο πώς θα υποστηρίξουμε αποτελεσματικότερα τις μικρομεσαίες επιχειρήσεις. Είμαι ιδιαίτερα ικανοποιημένη διότι φαίνεται ότι υπάρχει ενδιαφέρον στις διάφορες πολιτικές ομάδες αυτού του Σώματος. Νομίζω ότι όλοι το συμμεριζόμαστε αυτό. Θα ήθελα να ζητήσω καταρχάς ορισμένες διευκρινίσεις σχετικά με τις παρατηρήσεις που έκανε η γαλλίδα Υπουργός Εμπορίου, Christine Lagarde, όταν προσήλθε στην Επιτροπή Διεθνούς Εμπορίου του Κοινοβουλίου μόλις την προηγούμενη εβδομάδα. Μίλησε πολύ θερμά και ορθά, κατά τη γνώμη μου, για τη σημασία της προστασίας των μικρομεσαίων επιχειρήσεων στην Ευρώπη. Ωστόσο εσείς, κύριε Επίτροπε, φαίνεται ότι έχετε πολύ διαφορετική άποψη για τον ρόλο των ΜΜΕ και για τον καλύτερο τρόπο υποστήριξής τους. Η διασφάλιση καλύτερης πρόσβασης στις δημόσιες συμβάσεις για τις καινοτόμες μικρομεσαίες επιχειρήσεις είναι ουσιαστικής σημασίας. Αντιπροσωπεύουν 75 εκατομμύρια θέσεις εργασίας στην Ένωση και το 50% του κοινοτικού ΑΕΕ, και αποτελούν ζωτικό στοιχείο των αποδοτικών τοπικών και περιφερειακών οικονομιών σε ολόκληρη την ΕΕ. Φαίνεται όμως ότι η Επιτροπή εγκαταλείπει εκουσίως το δικαίωμα να στηρίξει τις ΜΜΕ της. Υπάρχουν ήδη πέντε χώρες –ο Καναδάς, οι ΗΠΑ, το Ισραήλ, η Ιαπωνία και η Νότια Κορέα– που θα περιλάβουν στη νομοθεσία τους διατάξεις για την παροχή προνομιακής πρόσβασης των ΜΜΕ στις δημόσιες συμβάσεις, ωστόσο η ΕΕ, παραδόξως, αποφάσισε ότι δεν ενδιαφέρεται να προστατέψει τις δικές της ΜΜΕ. Μπορείτε λοιπόν, κύριε Επίτροπε, να δικαιολογήσετε πραγματικά αυτήν τη θέση; Το να απεμπολήσει η ΕΕ το δικαίωμα σε ένα ισότιμο πλαίσιο, το οποίο θα επέτρεπε στις ΜΜΕ να έχουν ίσες ευκαιρίες ανταγωνισμού με τις μεγάλες πολυεθνικές, είναι ασυνήθιστο αλλά και πραγματικά απαράδεκτο. Ασφαλώς και εμείς θα έπρεπε να χρησιμοποιήσουμε την επαναδιαπραγμάτευση της συμφωνίας για τις δημόσιες συμβάσεις στη Γενεύη για να άρουμε τους φραγμούς του ΠΟΕ που εμποδίζουν τα κράτη μέλη να εφαρμόζουν ένα μέτρο προνομιακής πρόσβασης για τις ΜΜΕ εφόσον το επιθυμούν. Και εμείς θα έπρεπε να επιχειρηματολογούμε υπέρ των παρεκκλίσεων ως μέρος της αναθεωρημένης συμφωνίας για τις δημόσιες συμβάσεις ώστε να μπορούμε να εφαρμόζουμε προτιμησιακά μέτρα, και έτσι να αποκαταστήσουμε απλά την ισότιμη μεταχείριση προκειμένου να αποτρέψουμε την απόκτηση όλων των πλεονεκτημάτων από τις μεγάλες πολυεθνικές επιχειρήσεις. Λυπάμαι πολύ και για το ότι δεν είχαμε την ευκαιρία να διεξαγάγουμε στο παρελθόν μια συζήτηση στην Ευρώπη για το αν θα ήταν σκόπιμο να προσπαθήσουμε να επεκτείνουμε τους κανόνες του διεθνούς εμπορίου ώστε να καλύπτουν τις δημόσιες συμβάσεις. Πολλοί θα υποστήριζαν ότι οι δημόσιες συμβάσεις δεν έχουν καμία σχέση, ή έστω ότι έχουν ελάχιστη σχέση, με τα διεθνή θέματα εμπορίου, τους δασμούς και τις ποσοστώσεις και ότι πρόκειται για έναν απαράδεκτο τομέα για διαπραγματεύσεις στον ΠΟΕ, επειδή το να υπόκεινται οι δημόσιες συμβάσεις εθνικού, τοπικού ή περιφερειακού επιπέδου σε γενικούς κανόνες παγκόσμιου επιπέδου σχετικά με τον τρόπο που δαπανώνται τα χρήματα των φορολογουμένων πιστεύω ότι καταστρέφει τις εύλογες προσδοκίες των πολιτών, οι οποίοι θα πρέπει να έχουν το δικαίωμα κάποιας δημοκρατικής λογοδοσίας σχετικά με το πώς δαπανώνται τα χρήματά τους. Κατά βάση, τα χρήματα των φορολογουμένων είναι διαφορετικά από τα ιδιωτικά, εταιρικά χρήματα και οι πολίτες δικαίως αναμένουν να έχουν το δικαίωμα, για παράδειγμα, να ασκούν πιέσεις για περικοπή των δαπανών σε εταιρείες που δραστηριοποιούνταν στη Νότιο Αφρική όταν υπήρχε το καθεστώς του φυλετικού διαχωρισμού ή για απόρριψη των εταιρειών με κακό ιστορικό ως προς την εργασία ή το περιβάλλον. Πιστεύω ότι πρέπει να διαδραματίσουμε έναν πραγματικά σημαντικό ρόλο για την προστασία της τοπικής αναζήτησης πόρων και των δημόσιων συμβάσεων ως ζωτικό μέσο για την τοπική απασχόληση και τη βιομηχανική πολιτική."@el¹⁰ ". Señora Presidenta, ¡enhorabuena! Está muy bien verla en la Presidencia. Comisario McCreevy, yo también quiero empezar hablando de cómo apoyamos mejor a las pequeñas y medianas empresas. Celebro ver que parece que los Grupos políticos de esta Cámara se interesan por esta cuestión. Creo que todos estamos preocupados. Quiero pedir primero algunas aclaraciones sobre los comentarios hechos por la Ministra de Comercio francesa, Christine Lagarde, en su comparecencia de la semana pasada ante la Comisión de Comercio Internacional del Parlamento Europeo. Habló muy apasionada y correctamente, a mi juicio, sobre la importancia de defender a las pequeñas y medianas empresas en Europa. Pero usted, señor Comisario, parece tener una opinión muy diferente del papel de las PYME y de la mejor forma de apoyarlas. Es fundamental que facilitemos el acceso de las pequeñas y medianas empresas innovadoras a los mercados de contratación pública. Esas empresas engloban 75 millones de puestos de trabajo en la Unión y el 50 % del PIB de la Comunidad, y constituyen un factor esencial de impulso de las economías locales y regionales en toda la UE. Pero parece ser que la Comisión renuncia voluntariamente al derecho a apoyar a sus PYME. Ya hay cinco países –Canadá, Estados Unidos, Israel, Japón y Corea del Sur– que introducirán disposiciones en su legislación para dar acceso privilegiado a las PYME a los mercados de contratación pública y, aún así, la UE, por extraño que parezca, ha decidido que no tiene interés en defender a sus propias PYME. ¿Puede usted, señor Comisario, justificar realmente esa posición? La renuncia de la UE al derecho a establecer la igualdad de condiciones que permitan a las PYME competir en pie de igualdad con las grandes multinacionales, parece tan extraordinaria como inaceptable. Sin duda nosotros también tendríamos que aprovechar la renegociación del ACP en Ginebra para desmantelar las barreras de la OMC que impiden a los Estados miembros adoptar medidas de acceso privilegiado para sus PYME, si es que así lo desean. Tendríamos que defender la aplicación de excepciones en el marco del ACP renegociado para poder introducir medidas preferenciales y con ello, simplemente, restablecer la igualdad de trato y evitar que las grandes multinacionales tengan todas las ventajas. Lamento mucho, asimismo, que no hayamos tenido la oportunidad de celebrar un debate previo en Europa sobre si es o no conveniente tratar de ampliar las reglas del comercio internacional para incluir la contratación pública. Muchos dirán que la contratación pública tiene poco o nada que ver con los aspectos tradicionales del comercio, los aranceles y las cuotas, y que es un terreno que no puede ser objeto de negociaciones en la OMC, porque someter la contratación pública de ámbito nacional, local o regional a unas reglas iguales para todos a escala mundial respecto a cómo debe gastarse el dinero de los contribuyentes me parece que destruye las expectativas razonables que tienen los ciudadanos de que exista cierto nivel de responsabilidad democrática sobre la forma de gastar su dinero. Esencialmente, el dinero del contribuyente es diferente del dinero de las empresas privadas, y los ciudadanos esperan con razón tener derecho a presionar para que se recorte el gasto, por ejemplo, que favorecía a las empresas que hacían negocio en Sudáfrica cuando existía el o para descalificar a empresas que no mostraran un comportamiento correcto en materia laboral o ambiental. Creo que tenemos que defender con ahínco la selección de proveedores y productores locales como un instrumento fundamental de la política local de empleo e industrial."@es²¹ "Madam President, congratulations! It is very good to see you in the Chair. Commissioner McCreevy, I too should like to start off by talking about how best we support small and medium-sized enterprises. I am very pleased that there seems to be a concern right across the different political groups of this House. I think we all share that. I would like to ask first of all for some clarification of remarks made by the French Trade Minister, Christine Lagarde, when she came to Parliament’s Committee on International Trade just last week. She spoke very passionately and rightly, I believe, about the importance of defending small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe. And yet you, Commissioner, seem to have a very different view of the role of SMEs and how best to support them. Guaranteeing better access to public procurement contracts for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises is essential. They represent 75 million jobs in the Union and 50% of Community GNI, and they are a vital component of thriving local and regional economies all around the EU. But it seems that the Commission is voluntarily giving up the right to support its SMEs. There are already five countries– Canada, the US, Israel, Japan and South Korea – that will introduce provisions into their legislation which give privileged access to SMEs for public procurement, and yet the EU, bizarrely, has decided it has no interest in standing up for its own SMEs. So Commissioner, can you really justify this position? For the EU to forego the right to a level playing field which would allow SMEs to have an equal opportunity to compete like the large multinationals seems both extraordinary and indeed unacceptable. Surely we too should be using the renegotiation of the GPA in Geneva to break down the WTO barriers which prevent Member States from implementing a privileged access measure for SMEs should they so wish. We too should be arguing for derogations as part of the revised GPA to allow us to bring in preferential measures, and by doing this we are simply restoring equality of treatment in order to prevent the large multinational corporations from having all of the advantages. I very much regret as well that we have not had the opportunity for a prior debate really in Europe about whether it is appropriate to try to extend international trade rules to cover government procurement at all. Many would argue that government procurement has little or nothing to do with traditional matters of trade, tariffs and quotas, and that it is an unacceptable area for negotiations at the WTO, because subjecting government procurement at the national, local or regional level to one-size-fits-all rules at a global level on how taxpayers’ funds are spent I think destroys citizens’ reasonable expectations that they should have a level of democratic accountability over how their money is spent. Essentially, taxpayers’ money is different from private, corporate money, and citizens rightly expect that they should have the right, for example, to lobby to cut off expenditure on companies that were doing business in South Africa when there was apartheid, or to disqualify companies with bad labour or environmental records. I believe we have a really important role to play in defending local sourcing and procurement as a vital instrument of local employment and industrial policy."@et⁵ ". Arvoisa puhemies, onneksi olkoon! On suurenmoista nähdä teidän johtavan istuntoa. Arvoisa komission jäsen McCreevy, haluan itsekin aluksi käsitellä parhaita tapoja tukea pieniä ja keskisuuria yrityksiä. Olen hyvin mielissäni siitä, että tämä asia kiinnostaa yleisesti Euroopan parlamentin eri poliittisia ryhmiä. Mielestäni tämä yhdistää meitä kaikkia. Pyytäisin aluksi Ranskan kauppaministeriä Christine Lagardea hieman selventämään niitä huomautuksia, joita hän esitti vieraillessaan parlamentin kansainvälisen kaupan valiokunnassa juuri viime viikolla. Hän puhui hyvin palavasti ja mielestäni oikeutetusti siitä, kuinka tärkeää on puolustaa Euroopan pieniä ja keskisuuria yrityksiä. Arvoisa komission jäsen, teillä vaikuttaa kuitenkin olevan aivan erilainen näkemys pk-yritysten asemasta ja parhaista tavoista tukea niitä. On välttämätöntä taata innovatiivisille pienille ja keskisuurille yrityksille paremmat mahdollisuudet tehdä julkisia hankintasopimuksia. Ne työllistävät EU:ssa 75 miljoonaa ihmistä ja niiden osuus yhteisön BKTL:sta on 50 prosenttia. Niillä on suuri merkitys menestyville paikallis- ja aluetalouksille kaikkialla EU:ssa. Vaikuttaa kuitenkin siltä, että komissio on vapaaehtoisesti luopumassa oikeudesta tukea pk-yrityksiään. Jo viisi maata – Kanada, Yhdysvallat, Israel, Japani ja Etelä-Korea – aikoo antaa säännöksiä, joilla turvataan pk-yritysten etuoikeus osallistua julkisiin hankintoihin. Kummallista kyllä, EU on tästä huolimatta päättänyt, ettei se ole kiinnostunut puolustamaan omia pk-yrityksiään. Arvoisa komission jäsen, pystyttekö todella perustelemaan tämän kannan? Tuntuu sekä eriskummalliselta että aivan käsittämättömältä, että EU luopuu oikeudestaan tasapuolisiin toimintaedellytyksiin, joiden ansiosta pk-yrityksillä olisi yhtäläiset kilpailumahdollisuudet suurten monikansallisten yhtiöiden kanssa. Toki meidänkin pitäisi hyödyntää julkisista hankintasopimuksista Genevessä käytäviä uusia neuvotteluja purkaaksemme WTO:n esteet, joiden takia jäsenvaltiot eivät voi halutessaan toteuttaa toimenpiteitä pk-yritysten etuoikeutetun markkinoillepääsyn varmistamiseksi. Meidänkin pitäisi vaatia tarkistettuun julkisia hankintoja koskevaan sopimukseen poikkeuksia, jotta voimme ottaa käyttöön etuuskohtelutoimenpiteet. Ainoastaan näillä toimilla varmistamme yhdenvertaisen kohtelun ja estämme suuria monikansallisia yhtiöitä saamasta kaikkea hyötyä. Mielestäni on myös hyvin valitettavaa, ettei meillä ole aiemmin ollut todellista tilaisuutta keskustella EU:ssa siitä, onko lainkaan tarkoituksenmukaista yrittää laajentaa kansainvälisen kaupan sääntöjen soveltamisalaa julkisiin hankintoihin. Monien mielestä julkisilla hankinnoilla on vain vähän tai ei lainkaan tekemistä perinteisten kaupan alan kysymysten, tullien ja kiintiöiden kanssa. Heidän mielestään tästä alasta ei myöskään pidä neuvotella WTO:ssa, koska verorahojen käyttöä koskevien yleispätevien sääntöjen laajamittainen soveltaminen valtiollisiin, paikallisiin tai alueellisiin julkisiin hankintoihin murskaa mielestäni kansalaisten ymmärrettävät toiveet siitä, että demokraattisesti heidän on saatava vastata rahojensa käytöstä omalta osaltaan. Verovarat eroavat olennaisesti yksityisistä ja yritysten varoista, ja kansalaiset vaativat perustellusti oikeutta vaikuttaa esimerkiksi Etelä-Afrikassa apartheidin aikana toimineiden yritysten menojen leikkaamiseen tai kieltää työvoima- tai ympäristöasioita huonosti hoitaneiden yritysten toiminta. Mielestäni Euroopan parlamentin on erittäin tärkeää puolustaa paikallistuotantoa ja paikallisia hankintoja, jotka ovat keskeinen paikallisen työllisyyden ja teollisuuspolitiikan väline."@fi⁷ "Félicitations Madame la Présidente! C’est vraiment très agréable de vous voir occuper ce fauteuil. Monsieur le Commissaire, je voudrais moi aussi commencer par débattre de la meilleure manière de soutenir les petites et moyennes entreprises. Je suis très heureuse que les différents groupes politiques de notre Parlement semblent partager la même préoccupation. Je crois que nous la partageons tous. Je voudrais demander tout d’abord quelques clarifications au sujet des remarques de la ministre française du commerce, Mme Christine Lagarde. Lors de sa visite de la semaine dernière à la commission du commerce international du Parlement européen, elle a parlé avec beaucoup de passion, et à juste titre je pense, de l’importance de défendre les petites et moyennes entreprises en Europe. Pourtant, vous semblez avoir un point de vue très différent, Monsieur le Commissaire, en ce qui concerne le rôle des PME et la meilleure manière de les soutenir. Il est essentiel de garantir un meilleur accès aux contrats des marchés publics pour les petites et moyennes entreprises innovantes. Celles-ci représentent 75 millions d’emplois dans l’Union et 50 % du revenu national brut de la Communauté. Elles constituent un facteur vital d’épanouissement des économies locales et régionales partout dans l’Union européenne. Il semble toutefois que la Commission renonce volontairement au droit de soutenir ses PME. Cinq pays - le Canada, les États-Unis, Israël, le Japon et la Corée du Sud - vont introduire dans leur législation des dispositions qui accordent un accès privilégié aux marchés publics pour leurs PME. De manière assez bizarre, l’Union européenne a décidé quant à elle qu’il n’était pas intéressant de soutenir ses PME. Pouvez-vous vraiment justifier cette position, Monsieur le Commissaire? Il est à la fois extraordinaire et même inacceptable que l’Union européenne renonce au droit de réciprocité qui permette aux PME d’avoir la même occasion de rivaliser que les grandes multinationales. Nous devrions nous servir nous aussi de la renégociation de l’AMP à Genève pour abattre les obstacles de l’OMC qui empêchent les États membres de mettre en œuvre une mesure d’accès privilégié pour les PME si tel est leur souhait. Nous devrions plaider nous aussi pour des dérogations dans le cadre de l’AMP révisé, qui nous permettent d’introduire des mesures préférentielles. En faisant cela, nous ne faisons que rétablir l’égalité de traitement afin d’empêcher que les grandes sociétés multinationales jouissent de tous les avantages. Je regrette beaucoup aussi que nous n’ayons pas eu l’occasion de mener un vrai débat préalable en Europe pour savoir s’il est approprié d’essayer d’étendre les règles du commerce international pour couvrir les marchés publics. Nombreux sont ceux pour qui les marchés publics ont très peu de choses, voire rien du tout, en commun avec les questions traditionnelles du commerce, des droits de douane et des quotas; pour qui cela représente un domaine inacceptable de négociation à l’OMC, parce que soumettre les marchés publics au niveau national, local ou régional à des règles uniformes au niveau mondial sur la manière de dépenser les fonds des contribuables détruit, je crois, les attentes raisonnables des citoyens qui veulent disposer d’un niveau de responsabilité démocratique sur la manière de dépenser leur argent. Par essence, l’argent des contribuables diffère de l’argent du privé, des sociétés. Les citoyens ont raison de s’attendre à avoir le droit, par exemple, de faire pression pour réduire les dépenses accordées à des sociétés qui traitaient avec l’Afrique du Sud lorsque sévissait l’apartheid ou pour disqualifier les sociétés qui ne respectent pas les droits des travailleurs ou l’environnement. Je crois que nous avons un rôle vraiment important à jouer dans la défense de l’approvisionnement au niveau local et des marchés publics en tant qu’instrument vital d’emploi local et de politique industrielle."@fr⁸ "Madam President, congratulations! It is very good to see you in the Chair. Commissioner McCreevy, I too should like to start off by talking about how best we support small and medium-sized enterprises. I am very pleased that there seems to be a concern right across the different political groups of this House. I think we all share that. I would like to ask first of all for some clarification of remarks made by the French Trade Minister, Christine Lagarde, when she came to Parliament’s Committee on International Trade just last week. She spoke very passionately and rightly, I believe, about the importance of defending small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe. And yet you, Commissioner, seem to have a very different view of the role of SMEs and how best to support them. Guaranteeing better access to public procurement contracts for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises is essential. They represent 75 million jobs in the Union and 50% of Community GNI, and they are a vital component of thriving local and regional economies all around the EU. But it seems that the Commission is voluntarily giving up the right to support its SMEs. There are already five countries– Canada, the US, Israel, Japan and South Korea – that will introduce provisions into their legislation which give privileged access to SMEs for public procurement, and yet the EU, bizarrely, has decided it has no interest in standing up for its own SMEs. So Commissioner, can you really justify this position? For the EU to forego the right to a level playing field which would allow SMEs to have an equal opportunity to compete like the large multinationals seems both extraordinary and indeed unacceptable. Surely we too should be using the renegotiation of the GPA in Geneva to break down the WTO barriers which prevent Member States from implementing a privileged access measure for SMEs should they so wish. We too should be arguing for derogations as part of the revised GPA to allow us to bring in preferential measures, and by doing this we are simply restoring equality of treatment in order to prevent the large multinational corporations from having all of the advantages. I very much regret as well that we have not had the opportunity for a prior debate really in Europe about whether it is appropriate to try to extend international trade rules to cover government procurement at all. Many would argue that government procurement has little or nothing to do with traditional matters of trade, tariffs and quotas, and that it is an unacceptable area for negotiations at the WTO, because subjecting government procurement at the national, local or regional level to one-size-fits-all rules at a global level on how taxpayers’ funds are spent I think destroys citizens’ reasonable expectations that they should have a level of democratic accountability over how their money is spent. Essentially, taxpayers’ money is different from private, corporate money, and citizens rightly expect that they should have the right, for example, to lobby to cut off expenditure on companies that were doing business in South Africa when there was apartheid, or to disqualify companies with bad labour or environmental records. I believe we have a really important role to play in defending local sourcing and procurement as a vital instrument of local employment and industrial policy."@hu¹¹ "Signora Presidente, congratulazioni! Sono molto lieta di vederla alla Presidenza. Signor Commissario McCreevy, anch’io vorrei cominciare parlando di come offrire il migliore sostegno possibile alle piccole e medie imprese. Sono molto lieta che a quanto sembra tutti i gruppi politici al Parlamento europeo siano interessati alla questione. E’ una preoccupazione che, a mio giudizio, tutti condividiamo. Vorrei chiedere prima di tutto qualche chiarimento sulle osservazioni fatte dal ministro francese del Commercio, Christine Lagarde, quando la settimana scorsa si è rivolta alla nostra commissione per il commercio internazionale. Il ministro Lagarde ha parlato molto appassionatamente e giustamente, a mio parere, dell’importanza di difendere le piccole e medie imprese in Europa. Tuttavia, lei, signor Commissario, sembra avere un parere molto diverso riguardo al ruolo delle PMI e al miglior modo di sostenerle. E’ essenziale garantire un migliore accesso ai contratti degli appalti pubblici per le piccole e medie imprese innovative. Le PMI rappresentano 75 milioni di posti di lavoro nell’Unione e il 50 per cento dell’RNL comunitario e sono una componente vitale per la prosperità delle economie locali e regionali in tutta l’UE. Ma sembra che la Commissione stia rinunciando volontariamente al diritto di sostenere le proprie PMI. Ci sono già cinque paesi – Canada, Stati Uniti, Israele, Giappone e Corea del Sud – che introdurranno nelle rispettive legislazioni disposizioni mirate a concedere un accesso privilegiato alle PMI negli appalti pubblici, eppure l’UE, stranamente, ha deciso che non ha interesse a difendere le proprie PMI. Dunque, signor Commissario, davvero può giustificare questa posizione? Il fatto che l’Unione europea rinunci al diritto di offrire condizioni di parità che permetterebbero alle PMI di godere di pari opportunità per competere come le grandi multinazionali sembra al tempo stesso assurdo e inaccettabile. Sicuramente anche noi dovremmo avvalerci della rinegoziazione dell’AAP a Ginevra per abbattere le barriere dell’OMC che impediscono agli Stati membri di applicare, se lo desiderano, una misura di accesso privilegiato per le PMI. Anche noi dovremmo batterci per ottenere deroghe nel quadro dell’AAP riveduto per poter introdurre misure preferenziali, e così facendo stiamo semplicemente ripristinando la parità di trattamento, per evitare che siano solo le grandi multinazionali a godere di tutti i vantaggi. Mi rammarico moltissimo anche del fatto che non abbiamo realmente avuto l’opportunità di svolgere in precedenza un dibattito in Europa per verificare se sia opportuno cercare di estendere agli appalti pubblici le norme del commercio internazionale. Molti diranno che gli appalti pubblici hanno poco o nulla a che vedere con le tradizionali questioni del commercio, delle tariffe e delle quote, e che si tratta di un settore inaccettabile da negoziare in sede di OMC, perché assoggettare gli appalti pubblici a livello nazionale, locale o regionale a regole indifferenziate a livello globale sulle modalità di spesa dei fondi dei contribuenti distrugge, a mio parere, le ragionevoli aspettative dei cittadini che sperano di poter contare su una certa responsabilità democratica sul modo in cui viene speso il loro denaro. Essenzialmente, il denaro dei contribuenti è diverso dai fondi privati, delle imprese, e i cittadini si aspettano giustamente di avere il diritto, ad esempio, di esercitare pressioni finalizzate a tagliare la spesa a favore di imprese che svolgevano attività commerciali in Sudafrica quando vigeva la segregazione razziale, o a escludere imprese che hanno comportamenti scorretti nei confronti della forza lavoro o dell’ambiente. Io credo che abbiamo un ruolo veramente importante da svolgere nel difendere l’approvvigionamento e gli appalti locali come strumento vitale dell’occupazione locale e della politica industriale."@it¹² "Madam President, congratulations! It is very good to see you in the Chair. Commissioner McCreevy, I too should like to start off by talking about how best we support small and medium-sized enterprises. I am very pleased that there seems to be a concern right across the different political groups of this House. I think we all share that. I would like to ask first of all for some clarification of remarks made by the French Trade Minister, Christine Lagarde, when she came to Parliament’s Committee on International Trade just last week. She spoke very passionately and rightly, I believe, about the importance of defending small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe. And yet you, Commissioner, seem to have a very different view of the role of SMEs and how best to support them. Guaranteeing better access to public procurement contracts for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises is essential. They represent 75 million jobs in the Union and 50% of Community GNI, and they are a vital component of thriving local and regional economies all around the EU. But it seems that the Commission is voluntarily giving up the right to support its SMEs. There are already five countries– Canada, the US, Israel, Japan and South Korea – that will introduce provisions into their legislation which give privileged access to SMEs for public procurement, and yet the EU, bizarrely, has decided it has no interest in standing up for its own SMEs. So Commissioner, can you really justify this position? For the EU to forego the right to a level playing field which would allow SMEs to have an equal opportunity to compete like the large multinationals seems both extraordinary and indeed unacceptable. Surely we too should be using the renegotiation of the GPA in Geneva to break down the WTO barriers which prevent Member States from implementing a privileged access measure for SMEs should they so wish. We too should be arguing for derogations as part of the revised GPA to allow us to bring in preferential measures, and by doing this we are simply restoring equality of treatment in order to prevent the large multinational corporations from having all of the advantages. I very much regret as well that we have not had the opportunity for a prior debate really in Europe about whether it is appropriate to try to extend international trade rules to cover government procurement at all. Many would argue that government procurement has little or nothing to do with traditional matters of trade, tariffs and quotas, and that it is an unacceptable area for negotiations at the WTO, because subjecting government procurement at the national, local or regional level to one-size-fits-all rules at a global level on how taxpayers’ funds are spent I think destroys citizens’ reasonable expectations that they should have a level of democratic accountability over how their money is spent. Essentially, taxpayers’ money is different from private, corporate money, and citizens rightly expect that they should have the right, for example, to lobby to cut off expenditure on companies that were doing business in South Africa when there was apartheid, or to disqualify companies with bad labour or environmental records. I believe we have a really important role to play in defending local sourcing and procurement as a vital instrument of local employment and industrial policy."@lt¹⁴ "Madam President, congratulations! It is very good to see you in the Chair. Commissioner McCreevy, I too should like to start off by talking about how best we support small and medium-sized enterprises. I am very pleased that there seems to be a concern right across the different political groups of this House. I think we all share that. I would like to ask first of all for some clarification of remarks made by the French Trade Minister, Christine Lagarde, when she came to Parliament’s Committee on International Trade just last week. She spoke very passionately and rightly, I believe, about the importance of defending small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe. And yet you, Commissioner, seem to have a very different view of the role of SMEs and how best to support them. Guaranteeing better access to public procurement contracts for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises is essential. They represent 75 million jobs in the Union and 50% of Community GNI, and they are a vital component of thriving local and regional economies all around the EU. But it seems that the Commission is voluntarily giving up the right to support its SMEs. There are already five countries– Canada, the US, Israel, Japan and South Korea – that will introduce provisions into their legislation which give privileged access to SMEs for public procurement, and yet the EU, bizarrely, has decided it has no interest in standing up for its own SMEs. So Commissioner, can you really justify this position? For the EU to forego the right to a level playing field which would allow SMEs to have an equal opportunity to compete like the large multinationals seems both extraordinary and indeed unacceptable. Surely we too should be using the renegotiation of the GPA in Geneva to break down the WTO barriers which prevent Member States from implementing a privileged access measure for SMEs should they so wish. We too should be arguing for derogations as part of the revised GPA to allow us to bring in preferential measures, and by doing this we are simply restoring equality of treatment in order to prevent the large multinational corporations from having all of the advantages. I very much regret as well that we have not had the opportunity for a prior debate really in Europe about whether it is appropriate to try to extend international trade rules to cover government procurement at all. Many would argue that government procurement has little or nothing to do with traditional matters of trade, tariffs and quotas, and that it is an unacceptable area for negotiations at the WTO, because subjecting government procurement at the national, local or regional level to one-size-fits-all rules at a global level on how taxpayers’ funds are spent I think destroys citizens’ reasonable expectations that they should have a level of democratic accountability over how their money is spent. Essentially, taxpayers’ money is different from private, corporate money, and citizens rightly expect that they should have the right, for example, to lobby to cut off expenditure on companies that were doing business in South Africa when there was apartheid, or to disqualify companies with bad labour or environmental records. I believe we have a really important role to play in defending local sourcing and procurement as a vital instrument of local employment and industrial policy."@lv¹³ "Madam President, congratulations! It is very good to see you in the Chair. Commissioner McCreevy, I too should like to start off by talking about how best we support small and medium-sized enterprises. I am very pleased that there seems to be a concern right across the different political groups of this House. I think we all share that. I would like to ask first of all for some clarification of remarks made by the French Trade Minister, Christine Lagarde, when she came to Parliament’s Committee on International Trade just last week. She spoke very passionately and rightly, I believe, about the importance of defending small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe. And yet you, Commissioner, seem to have a very different view of the role of SMEs and how best to support them. Guaranteeing better access to public procurement contracts for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises is essential. They represent 75 million jobs in the Union and 50% of Community GNI, and they are a vital component of thriving local and regional economies all around the EU. But it seems that the Commission is voluntarily giving up the right to support its SMEs. There are already five countries– Canada, the US, Israel, Japan and South Korea – that will introduce provisions into their legislation which give privileged access to SMEs for public procurement, and yet the EU, bizarrely, has decided it has no interest in standing up for its own SMEs. So Commissioner, can you really justify this position? For the EU to forego the right to a level playing field which would allow SMEs to have an equal opportunity to compete like the large multinationals seems both extraordinary and indeed unacceptable. Surely we too should be using the renegotiation of the GPA in Geneva to break down the WTO barriers which prevent Member States from implementing a privileged access measure for SMEs should they so wish. We too should be arguing for derogations as part of the revised GPA to allow us to bring in preferential measures, and by doing this we are simply restoring equality of treatment in order to prevent the large multinational corporations from having all of the advantages. I very much regret as well that we have not had the opportunity for a prior debate really in Europe about whether it is appropriate to try to extend international trade rules to cover government procurement at all. Many would argue that government procurement has little or nothing to do with traditional matters of trade, tariffs and quotas, and that it is an unacceptable area for negotiations at the WTO, because subjecting government procurement at the national, local or regional level to one-size-fits-all rules at a global level on how taxpayers’ funds are spent I think destroys citizens’ reasonable expectations that they should have a level of democratic accountability over how their money is spent. Essentially, taxpayers’ money is different from private, corporate money, and citizens rightly expect that they should have the right, for example, to lobby to cut off expenditure on companies that were doing business in South Africa when there was apartheid, or to disqualify companies with bad labour or environmental records. I believe we have a really important role to play in defending local sourcing and procurement as a vital instrument of local employment and industrial policy."@mt¹⁵ "Mevrouw de Voorzitter, mijn gelukwensen! Het doet mij genoegen u in de Voorzitterstoel te zien zitten. Commissaris McCreevy, sta mij toe om te beginnen met de wijze waarop wij kleine en middelgrote ondernemingen het beste kunnen ondersteunen. Het doet mij veel genoegen dat hierover in uiteenlopende fracties in dit Parlement bezorgdheid bestaat; een bezorgdheid die wij volgens mij allemaal delen. Allereerst zou ik graag een nadere toelichting willen horen op de opmerkingen die de Franse minister van Handel, Christine Lagarde, vorige week heeft gemaakt bij een bezoek aan de Commissie internationale handel. Zij heeft daar zeer bevlogen en terecht, naar mijn idee, gesproken over het belang van het beschermen van de KMO’s in Europa. Toch lijkt u, geachte commissaris, er heel andere opvattingen over de rol van de KMO’s op na te houden en over de wijze waarop zij het beste ondersteund kunnen worden. Het is van essentieel belang dat wij ervoor zorgen dat innovatieve KMO’s een betere toegang krijgen tot aanbestedingen van overheidsopdrachten. Dergelijke opdrachten zijn goed voor 75 miljoen banen in de Unie en voor 50 procent van het communautaire bruto nationaal inkomen. Zij vormen een cruciaal onderdeel bij het stimuleren van de groei van lokale en regionale economieën in de gehele EU. Het lijkt er echter op dat de Commissie haar recht om de KMO’s te ondersteunen, vrijwillig opgeeft. Op dit moment zijn er al vijf landen – Canada, de VS, Israël, Japan en Zuid-Korea – die bepalingen in hun wetgeving opnemen met het oog op een voorkeursbehandeling van KMO’s bij de aanbesteding van overheidsopdrachten. Vreemd genoeg vindt de EU dat zij er geen belang bij heeft om zich sterk te maken voor de eigen KMO’s. Kunt u dat standpunt echt verdedigen, commissaris? Het lijkt zowel uiterst bizar als absoluut onacceptabel dat de EU de kans op een “level playing field” laat lopen en zo de KMO’s de mogelijkheid onthoudt om op een gelijkwaardig niveau met de multinationals te concurreren. Het zou toch beter zijn als ook wij de heronderhandelingen over de GPA in Genève gebruiken om de WTO-belemmeringen weg te nemen die verhinderen dat lidstaten die dat wensen, maatregelen kunnen nemen om KMO’s een voorkeursbehandeling te geven bij de toegang tot aanbestedingen. Ook wij moeten ons sterk maken voor uitzonderingsmogelijkheden in het kader van de herziene GPA om preferentiële maatregelen te nemen. Het enige wat wij daarmee doen, is het herstellen van een gelijke behandeling om te voorkomen dat de grote multinationals alle voordelen naar zich toe trekken. Ik betreur het ook ten zeerste dat wij niet eerder de kans hebben gehad om een debat in Europa te voeren over de vraag of het überhaupt wel een goede zaak is om de internationale handelsregels uit te breiden tot aanbestedingen van overheidsopdrachten. Velen zullen beweren dat overheidsaanbestedingen weinig of niets met traditionele handelskwesties, tarieven en quota’s van doen hebben en dat het onaanvaardbaar is om dit onderwerp op de agenda van de WTO-onderhandelingen te zetten. Als overheidsaanbestedingen op nationaal, lokaal of regionaal niveau namelijk onderworpen worden aan een “one-size-fits-all”-regelgeving op mondiaal niveau en zo dus bepaald wordt waaraan het geld van de belastingbetalers besteed gaat worden, staat dit volgens mij haaks op de legitieme verwachtingen van burgers dat zij een bepaalde mate van democratische controle moeten kunnen uitoefenen over de besteding van hun geld. De aard van belastinggeld verschilt wezenlijk van die van particulier bedrijfskapitaal, en burgers vinden terecht dat zij het recht moeten hebben om bijvoorbeeld te lobbyen voor het beperken van overheidsuitgaven aan bedrijven die ten tijde van de apartheid zaken deden in Zuid-Afrika, of voor het buitenspel zetten van ondernemingen met slechte arbeidsomstandigheden of te weinig of geen aandacht voor het milieu. Volgens mij kunnen en moeten wij een belangrijke rol spelen bij het beschermen van de lokale aanbestedingen van overheidsopdrachten als een cruciaal instrument voor lokale werkgelegenheid en industriële beleidsmaatregelen."@nl³ "Madam President, congratulations! It is very good to see you in the Chair. Commissioner McCreevy, I too should like to start off by talking about how best we support small and medium-sized enterprises. I am very pleased that there seems to be a concern right across the different political groups of this House. I think we all share that. I would like to ask first of all for some clarification of remarks made by the French Trade Minister, Christine Lagarde, when she came to Parliament’s Committee on International Trade just last week. She spoke very passionately and rightly, I believe, about the importance of defending small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe. And yet you, Commissioner, seem to have a very different view of the role of SMEs and how best to support them. Guaranteeing better access to public procurement contracts for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises is essential. They represent 75 million jobs in the Union and 50% of Community GNI, and they are a vital component of thriving local and regional economies all around the EU. But it seems that the Commission is voluntarily giving up the right to support its SMEs. There are already five countries– Canada, the US, Israel, Japan and South Korea – that will introduce provisions into their legislation which give privileged access to SMEs for public procurement, and yet the EU, bizarrely, has decided it has no interest in standing up for its own SMEs. So Commissioner, can you really justify this position? For the EU to forego the right to a level playing field which would allow SMEs to have an equal opportunity to compete like the large multinationals seems both extraordinary and indeed unacceptable. Surely we too should be using the renegotiation of the GPA in Geneva to break down the WTO barriers which prevent Member States from implementing a privileged access measure for SMEs should they so wish. We too should be arguing for derogations as part of the revised GPA to allow us to bring in preferential measures, and by doing this we are simply restoring equality of treatment in order to prevent the large multinational corporations from having all of the advantages. I very much regret as well that we have not had the opportunity for a prior debate really in Europe about whether it is appropriate to try to extend international trade rules to cover government procurement at all. Many would argue that government procurement has little or nothing to do with traditional matters of trade, tariffs and quotas, and that it is an unacceptable area for negotiations at the WTO, because subjecting government procurement at the national, local or regional level to one-size-fits-all rules at a global level on how taxpayers’ funds are spent I think destroys citizens’ reasonable expectations that they should have a level of democratic accountability over how their money is spent. Essentially, taxpayers’ money is different from private, corporate money, and citizens rightly expect that they should have the right, for example, to lobby to cut off expenditure on companies that were doing business in South Africa when there was apartheid, or to disqualify companies with bad labour or environmental records. I believe we have a really important role to play in defending local sourcing and procurement as a vital instrument of local employment and industrial policy."@pl¹⁶ "Parabéns, Senhora Presidente! Muito me apraz vê-la na Presidência. Senhor Comissário McCreevy, gostaria, também eu, de começar por me pronunciar sobre qual a melhor forma de protegermos as pequenas e médias empresas. Regozijo-me deveras por constatar que, aparentemente, existe uma preocupação a este respeito entre todos os grupos políticos desta Assembleia. Creio que é uma preocupação comum a todos nós. Antes de mais, convidaria o Senhor Comissário a prestar-nos alguns esclarecimentos na sequência de observações proferidas pela Ministra do Comércio francesa, Senhora Christine Lagarde, quando da sua visita, ainda a semana passada, à Comissão do Comércio Internacional deste Parlamento. A Senhora Ministra falou apaixonadamente, e com razão, diria eu, sobre a importância de defender as pequenas e médias empresas europeias. O Senhor Comissário, porém, parece ter uma opinião bem diferente do papel das PME e de qual a melhor forma de as apoiarmos. É fundamental garantir às pequenas e médias empresas inovadoras um melhor acesso ao mercado dos contratos públicos. As PME são responsáveis por 75 milhões de postos de trabalho na União Europeia e por 50% do RNB comunitário, e constituem, por essa Europa fora, uma componente vital de economias locais e regionais florescentes. Mas pelos vistos a Comissão abdica voluntariamente do direito de apoiar as suas PME. Há neste momento cinco países - Canadá, Estados Unidos, Israel, Japão e Coreia do Sul – que tencionam introduzir na sua legislação disposições tendentes a assegurar às PME um acesso privilegiado aos contratos de direito público. A UE, porém, curiosamente, decidiu que não tem interesse em defender as suas próprias PME. Pergunto-lhe, pois, Senhor Comissário, se pode realmente justificar esta posição. A UE renunciar ao direito a condições de concorrência equitativas, que abririam às PME as mesmas oportunidades de concorrer de que gozam as grandes multinacionais, é algo de extraordinário ou, melhor dito, inadmissível. Seguramente que, também nós, deveríamos aproveitar a ocasião da renegociação do ACP, em Genebra, para eliminar os entraves da OMC que impedem os Estados-Membros de instituir, se assim o desejarem, uma medida de acesso privilegiado para as PME. Também nós deveríamos pugnar, no âmbito da revisão do ACP, pela introdução de derrogações que nos permitissem instaurar medidas preferenciais. Ao fazê-lo, estaríamos simplesmente a restabelecer a igualdade de condições, por forma a evitar que sejam as grandes empresas multinacionais a colher todos os benefícios. Lamento deveras, também, que não tenhamos tido a oportunidade de desenvolver previamente, a nível europeu, um debate sobre se há efectivamente conveniência em procurar alargar as regras de comércio internacional de molde a englobar os contratos públicos. Muitos teriam argumentado que os contratos de direito público pouco ou nada têm a ver com as questões tradicionalmente ligadas ao comércio, como os direitos e as quotas, e que se trata de um domínio que jamais deveria ser objecto de negociações no quadro da OMC, pois submeter os contratos públicos de âmbito nacional, local ou regional a regras internacionais "de tamanho único para todos" sobre como gastar o dinheiro dos contribuintes destrói, a meu ver, as razoáveis expectativas dos cidadãos de terem alguma responsabilidade democrática quanto à forma como o seu dinheiro é gasto. Basicamente, o dinheiro dos contribuintes é diferente do dinheiro privado, do das empresas, e os cidadãos partem do princípio, com razão, de que lhes assiste o direito, por exemplo, de exercer pressão no sentido de impedir o financiamento de empresas que se mantinham activas na África do Sul durante o regime de ou de considerar não elegíveis empresas com uma actuação insatisfatória em termos de respeito dos direitos laborais ou do meio ambiente. Creio que temos um papel verdadeiramente importante a desempenhar na defesa das fontes de fornecimento e dos contratos públicos locais enquanto instrumentos fundamentais de criação de emprego e de desenvolvimento de estratégias sectoriais, a nível local."@pt¹⁷ "Madam President, congratulations! It is very good to see you in the Chair. Commissioner McCreevy, I too should like to start off by talking about how best we support small and medium-sized enterprises. I am very pleased that there seems to be a concern right across the different political groups of this House. I think we all share that. I would like to ask first of all for some clarification of remarks made by the French Trade Minister, Christine Lagarde, when she came to Parliament’s Committee on International Trade just last week. She spoke very passionately and rightly, I believe, about the importance of defending small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe. And yet you, Commissioner, seem to have a very different view of the role of SMEs and how best to support them. Guaranteeing better access to public procurement contracts for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises is essential. They represent 75 million jobs in the Union and 50% of Community GNI, and they are a vital component of thriving local and regional economies all around the EU. But it seems that the Commission is voluntarily giving up the right to support its SMEs. There are already five countries– Canada, the US, Israel, Japan and South Korea – that will introduce provisions into their legislation which give privileged access to SMEs for public procurement, and yet the EU, bizarrely, has decided it has no interest in standing up for its own SMEs. So Commissioner, can you really justify this position? For the EU to forego the right to a level playing field which would allow SMEs to have an equal opportunity to compete like the large multinationals seems both extraordinary and indeed unacceptable. Surely we too should be using the renegotiation of the GPA in Geneva to break down the WTO barriers which prevent Member States from implementing a privileged access measure for SMEs should they so wish. We too should be arguing for derogations as part of the revised GPA to allow us to bring in preferential measures, and by doing this we are simply restoring equality of treatment in order to prevent the large multinational corporations from having all of the advantages. I very much regret as well that we have not had the opportunity for a prior debate really in Europe about whether it is appropriate to try to extend international trade rules to cover government procurement at all. Many would argue that government procurement has little or nothing to do with traditional matters of trade, tariffs and quotas, and that it is an unacceptable area for negotiations at the WTO, because subjecting government procurement at the national, local or regional level to one-size-fits-all rules at a global level on how taxpayers’ funds are spent I think destroys citizens’ reasonable expectations that they should have a level of democratic accountability over how their money is spent. Essentially, taxpayers’ money is different from private, corporate money, and citizens rightly expect that they should have the right, for example, to lobby to cut off expenditure on companies that were doing business in South Africa when there was apartheid, or to disqualify companies with bad labour or environmental records. I believe we have a really important role to play in defending local sourcing and procurement as a vital instrument of local employment and industrial policy."@ro¹⁸ "Madam President, congratulations! It is very good to see you in the Chair. Commissioner McCreevy, I too should like to start off by talking about how best we support small and medium-sized enterprises. I am very pleased that there seems to be a concern right across the different political groups of this House. I think we all share that. I would like to ask first of all for some clarification of remarks made by the French Trade Minister, Christine Lagarde, when she came to Parliament’s Committee on International Trade just last week. She spoke very passionately and rightly, I believe, about the importance of defending small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe. And yet you, Commissioner, seem to have a very different view of the role of SMEs and how best to support them. Guaranteeing better access to public procurement contracts for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises is essential. They represent 75 million jobs in the Union and 50% of Community GNI, and they are a vital component of thriving local and regional economies all around the EU. But it seems that the Commission is voluntarily giving up the right to support its SMEs. There are already five countries– Canada, the US, Israel, Japan and South Korea – that will introduce provisions into their legislation which give privileged access to SMEs for public procurement, and yet the EU, bizarrely, has decided it has no interest in standing up for its own SMEs. So Commissioner, can you really justify this position? For the EU to forego the right to a level playing field which would allow SMEs to have an equal opportunity to compete like the large multinationals seems both extraordinary and indeed unacceptable. Surely we too should be using the renegotiation of the GPA in Geneva to break down the WTO barriers which prevent Member States from implementing a privileged access measure for SMEs should they so wish. We too should be arguing for derogations as part of the revised GPA to allow us to bring in preferential measures, and by doing this we are simply restoring equality of treatment in order to prevent the large multinational corporations from having all of the advantages. I very much regret as well that we have not had the opportunity for a prior debate really in Europe about whether it is appropriate to try to extend international trade rules to cover government procurement at all. Many would argue that government procurement has little or nothing to do with traditional matters of trade, tariffs and quotas, and that it is an unacceptable area for negotiations at the WTO, because subjecting government procurement at the national, local or regional level to one-size-fits-all rules at a global level on how taxpayers’ funds are spent I think destroys citizens’ reasonable expectations that they should have a level of democratic accountability over how their money is spent. Essentially, taxpayers’ money is different from private, corporate money, and citizens rightly expect that they should have the right, for example, to lobby to cut off expenditure on companies that were doing business in South Africa when there was apartheid, or to disqualify companies with bad labour or environmental records. I believe we have a really important role to play in defending local sourcing and procurement as a vital instrument of local employment and industrial policy."@sk¹⁹ "Madam President, congratulations! It is very good to see you in the Chair. Commissioner McCreevy, I too should like to start off by talking about how best we support small and medium-sized enterprises. I am very pleased that there seems to be a concern right across the different political groups of this House. I think we all share that. I would like to ask first of all for some clarification of remarks made by the French Trade Minister, Christine Lagarde, when she came to Parliament’s Committee on International Trade just last week. She spoke very passionately and rightly, I believe, about the importance of defending small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe. And yet you, Commissioner, seem to have a very different view of the role of SMEs and how best to support them. Guaranteeing better access to public procurement contracts for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises is essential. They represent 75 million jobs in the Union and 50% of Community GNI, and they are a vital component of thriving local and regional economies all around the EU. But it seems that the Commission is voluntarily giving up the right to support its SMEs. There are already five countries– Canada, the US, Israel, Japan and South Korea – that will introduce provisions into their legislation which give privileged access to SMEs for public procurement, and yet the EU, bizarrely, has decided it has no interest in standing up for its own SMEs. So Commissioner, can you really justify this position? For the EU to forego the right to a level playing field which would allow SMEs to have an equal opportunity to compete like the large multinationals seems both extraordinary and indeed unacceptable. Surely we too should be using the renegotiation of the GPA in Geneva to break down the WTO barriers which prevent Member States from implementing a privileged access measure for SMEs should they so wish. We too should be arguing for derogations as part of the revised GPA to allow us to bring in preferential measures, and by doing this we are simply restoring equality of treatment in order to prevent the large multinational corporations from having all of the advantages. I very much regret as well that we have not had the opportunity for a prior debate really in Europe about whether it is appropriate to try to extend international trade rules to cover government procurement at all. Many would argue that government procurement has little or nothing to do with traditional matters of trade, tariffs and quotas, and that it is an unacceptable area for negotiations at the WTO, because subjecting government procurement at the national, local or regional level to one-size-fits-all rules at a global level on how taxpayers’ funds are spent I think destroys citizens’ reasonable expectations that they should have a level of democratic accountability over how their money is spent. Essentially, taxpayers’ money is different from private, corporate money, and citizens rightly expect that they should have the right, for example, to lobby to cut off expenditure on companies that were doing business in South Africa when there was apartheid, or to disqualify companies with bad labour or environmental records. I believe we have a really important role to play in defending local sourcing and procurement as a vital instrument of local employment and industrial policy."@sl²⁰ "Fru talman! Gratulerar – det är mycket trevligt att se er på ordförandeplatsen! Kommissionsledamot McCreevy! Också jag vill inleda med att diskutera hur vi bäst stöder de små och medelstora företagen. Det gläder mig mycket att oron verkar delas av alla de olika politiska grupperna i parlamentet. Jag tror att detta är gemensamt för oss alla. Inledningsvis vill jag be om ett förtydligande av de synpunkter som framfördes av den franska handelsministern Christine Lagarde vid hennes besök hos parlamentets utskott för internationell handel så sent som i förra veckan. Hon talade mycket engagerat och i mitt tycke med all rätt om vikten av att värna om de små och medelstora företagen i Europa. Ni tycks emellertid ha en klart avvikande åsikt om de små och medelstora företagens betydelse och hur de bäst kan stödjas. Det viktigaste är att innovativa små och medelstora företag garanteras ett bättre tillträde till offentliga upphandlingar. Dessa företag står för 75 miljoner arbetstillfällen inom EU och för 50 procent av gemenskapens bruttonationalinkomst (BNI), och de är ett livskraftigt inslag i de blomstrande lokala och regionala ekonomierna överallt inom EU. Det förefaller emellertid som om kommissionen självmant avstår från rätten att stödja sina små och medelstora företag. Fem länder – Kanada, USA, Israel, Japan och Sydkorea – kommer redan nu att lagstifta om att små och medelstora företag ska ges förtur till offentlig upphandling, och ändå har EU underligt nog beslutat att det inte har något intresse av att slå vakt om de egna små och medelstora företagen. Kan ni verkligen försvara denna inställning? Att EU avstår från rätten till rättvisa villkor som skulle innebära att de små och medelstora företagen ges samma möjligheter som de multinationella företagen att konkurrera, förefaller både högst märkligt och fullständigt oacceptabelt. Givetvis ska också vi dra fördel av omförhandlingen av avtalet om offentlig upphandling (GPA) i Genève och undanröja de hinder som Världshandelsorganisationen (WTO) har infört och som innebär att medlemsstaterna hindras från att ge de små och medelstora företag som så önskar ett bättre tillträde. Också vi bör hävda att undantag ska ingå i det omarbetade GPA, så att vi kan införa en förmånsbehandling som innebär att vi helt enkelt återinför en likabehandling och därmed hindrar de multinationella företagen från att få alla fördelar. Jag är också mycket besviken över att vi i Europa inte har fått möjlighet till en ordentlig förhandsdiskussion om det över huvud taget är lämpligt att försöka utvidga de internationella handelsreglerna till att också gälla offentlig upphandling. Många menar att offentlig upphandling har mycket lite eller inget alls att göra med frågor som rör handel, tullar och kvoter i traditionell mening. Man menar också att detta område absolut inte bör innefattas i några WTO-förhandlingar, eftersom enhetliga regler på global nivå som tillämpas på offentlig upphandling på nationell, lokal eller regional nivå och som handlar om hur skattebetalarnas tillgångar ska användas enligt min åsikt innebär att medborgarnas rimliga förväntningar på ett demokratiskt inflytande över hur deras pengar används kommer på skam. Skattebetalarnas pengar skiljer sig väsentligt från privata företags pengar, och medborgarna förväntar sig med all rätt att exempelvis få bedriva lobbyverksamhet för att förhindra att medel ges till företag som bedrev affärsverksamhet i Sydafrika under apartheidtiden eller att utestänga företag med erkänt dåliga arbetsvillkor eller bristande miljöansvar. Jag anser att vi har en mycket viktig uppgift när det gäller att slå vakt om det mycket betydelsefulla instrument för den lokala sysselsättningen och industripolitiken som utgörs av anskaffning och upphandling på lokal nivå."@sv²²
lpv:unclassifiedMetadata	"Caroline Lucas,"^{18,5,20,15,1,19,14,16,11,13,4} "apartheid"^21,17 "on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group"^{18,5,20,15,1,19,14,16,11,13,4}