Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-13-Speech-3-158"
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"en.20010613.4.3-158"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, allow me to start by quoting the early German Romantic Novalis. As perhaps the first visionary of our present concept of a liberal and peaceful Europe, he coined the following expression about 200 years ago in his widely acclaimed treatise "Christendom or Europe": "Everything is good, but not necessarily all the time, not necessarily everywhere and not necessarily for all of the people." He was quite right. This insight is something we come up against almost every day in the European decision-making process.
Extended to self-employed drivers, the directive regulating the working time of persons occupied in mobile road-transport activities under discussion today is a perfectly typical example. From the point of view of small and medium-sized enterprises, and especially self-employed drivers, this directive, with its limit values on average, accurately-defined maximum working times, minimum breaks and rest periods and its provisions on night work, is an example of politics exerting an inadmissible and unnecessary influence on working times for which these drivers alone are responsible. From their point of view, it is even a compelling, authoritarian obstacle which stands in contradiction to the principles of a market economy and should therefore be rejected.
However, social and competition policy and road safety experts take a different view. When it comes to more and more frequent shock headlines such as: "Tired truck driver ploughs into carefully parked broken down car" and the need to avoid bogus self-employment and the unfair competition which it engenders, this directive is long overdue.
Improved health protection and safety in the workplace for employees in the road haulage industry also deserves a mention. For me, as an ardent supporter of a social market economy, my motto is: people first, the economy second. So I would recommend that we tighten up the common position in the interests of everyone, including those of us who use the roads as pedestrians."@en1
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