Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-06-12-Speech-3-269"
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"en.20020612.6.3-269"2
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"Mr President, I naturally want to thank Mr Marques and congratulate him on his report and also on the way he has presented it.
At the moment, I believe the objective for the Spanish Government in making the proposals and for the Commission is to liberalise the internal market and to facilitate the integration of this region – so distant and facing so many difficulties – into the rest of the internal market. It must also be remembered that there is not even such a thing as a Canary Islands market, because there are seven islands and each island has a market, with its own obstacles. In other words, it may be much easier to export from Luxembourg to Gran Canaria than from Tenerife to Gran Canaria, unless these small differences are established.
I hope that tomorrow this House will approve the proposal as formulated by the Committee on Regional Policy, and the Socialist Group is, of course, against the amendments tabled by Mr Helmer, which attempt to demolish or weaken a system which I believe has now been precisely calculated to prevent these businesses or occupations from disappearing.
I am grateful to the Commission and its staff for their efforts and, of course, I am grateful to Mr Marques for the work he has done in presenting this report to us.
Perhaps I should begin by reassuring Mrs Lulling – reassuring her and clarifying things a little for her, because last week I was in Luxembourg, Mrs Lulling’s own country, right in the middle of the European Union. In fact, the problem they have in Luxembourg today, as I could see last week, is that the country has too much economic activity, which is attracting hundreds of thousands of workers to work there.
The situation in the outermost regions of the Community is completely different. We are, one might say, the other side of the coin to Luxembourg. Any economic activity we perform has to overcome the enormous obstacle of distance. At the moment, therefore, it is quite impossible for any industrial company to set itself up in the Canary Islands to compete within the Community.
We had developed a small industrial sector on the basis of some rules which are certainly quite ancient, going back to the time when the Canary Islands were brought under the Crown of Castile, before Spain existed. There is a fifteenth-century Royal Charter by the Catholic Monarchs exempting traders in the Canary Islands from paying a number of taxes, and this has continued over the centuries. The Spanish constitution recognises it. When Spain joined the European Community, the Spanish Government took care to include some special provisions in the Act of Accession of Spain and Portugal to the European Community to guarantee this special regime, and there is a protocol on this, which was amended by a Council decision in 1991 to adapt it to the internal market. I would say that the special regime for the Canary Islands compared with the rest of the Community territory is less special now than at any time in the whole history of our country and the European Community.
What we have done is to replace old forms of taxation, which were much more restrictive, like the APIM (Tax on Production and Imports) or the special tariff, with some new forms of taxation which conflict much less with the operation of the internal market. In other words, what the Commission is proposing and I hope the Council will approve is to try to reduce the impact on trade. In this way, the measures we are adopting now are measures that will facilitate trade within the European Union.
Mrs Lulling may be right in some respect; I do not deny it. That is, I would say we have now had a first go, a first attempt at outlining what this neutral tax system will be, allowing trade to function but with a slight preference so as to be able to maintain traditional activities.
If Mrs Lulling looks, for instance, at the amendments approved by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism – Amendment No 10 to Article 2 and Amendment No 11 to Article 3 – she will see that there are some adaptation mechanisms, so that the Council, acting on a proposal from the Commission, can review the conditions and adjust the rates and other situations.
Besides, I am aware that the same concerns voiced by Mrs Lulling have also been voiced specifically at a local level by economic and political actors. This means that, once the Council approves the system, we shall have the opportunity to go on reviewing and adapting it in order to achieve the objective of the functioning of the internal market.
It is not a matter of putting up insurmountable barriers but of letting some small, traditional activities continue, and that explains why there is, if you like, a certain discrimination. That is, products are included according to whether there are economic activities that have to be kept going. It is not a question of developing new economic activities but in practice of keeping existing ones going. Of course, I agree with Mrs Lulling that there may be differences, but we shall have to look at these differences a little later."@en1
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