Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-14-Speech-2-018"
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"en.20030114.1.2-018"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to congratulate the rapporteurs, who have done a magnificent job. Although there are some differences of opinion on the detail, we are in very substantial agreement with the reports and will – at least I assume we will – be adopting them today, because, as Mrs Peijs has just said, it has been possible to reach some important compromises. This package, building on earlier decisions, will actually take us an important step closer to establishing a European railway. The restrictions imposed by the nation-states, and the fears that they still have, will – I hope – soon be consigned to the past.
I dealt personally with Mr Jarzembowski's and Mrs Ainardi's reports. Mr Jarzembowski's report – and once again Mr Jarzembowski has disappeared off somewhere; he is a real European high-speed train and is never where he actually should be, but be that as it may – proposes extensive liberalisation. Obviously for us Social Democrats – let me be quite open about it – this is a tricky business.
Today, for various reasons, a large majority of us will go along with these proposals: firstly, because they are part of an overall agreement, as part of which we have also, particularly in the Savary report, obtained a series of provisions guaranteeing workers' rights and opportunities. I have no fears in this regard, Mrs Peijs, but we certainly must focus on the working conditions and health and safety in the sector for the sake of those employed there. Secondly, there are unfortunately a number of countries that are still very restrictive where market opening is concerned. I therefore assume that a more constructive and reasonable compromise proposal will emerge from the conciliation procedure. Thirdly, it is my view that we need to put pressure on the national railway undertakings, be they public or private. Many of these railway undertakings have not read the signs of the times; they have entered into cooperation with each other only to a very limited extent and only in some areas, for example high-speed trains. The railway companies have either not recognised that nowadays transport services at least have to be European – which has of course long been the case for HGVs – or they have not done anything about it. A certain amount of pressure to liberalise and move towards market opening is therefore certainly very important for the national railway companies.
Turning now to Mrs Ainardi's report, this is also a very good piece of work. We regret the fact that, particularly in this report, too little account has been taken of some aspects of social harmonisation, because there are understandably fears on the part of workers that this will lead to a kind of social dumping. I believe that it is particularly important for the workers to be included in the process of reforming the railways. The civil servants and others employed in the railway sector also need to know that the times of national, restricted, controlled railway undertakings are over, and that this is about creating a European railway. Once again, I believe that the essential point here is that, hopefully, today's decision will send out a signal to the railway undertakings, so that they will make it their own business to create a real European railway."@en1
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