Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-14-Speech-2-026"

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"en.20030114.1.2-026"2
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"Mr President, all these reports on Community railways are part and parcel of the recent tidal wave of privatisation aimed at ensuring that not one public sector escapes the clutches of private capital, at the expense of quality, public safety and the cost of the services provided. Accounting tricks and baseless arguments are being used to persuade us that, as with road transport, which contributes nothing to the infrastructure costs of the road network but is open to the private sector, we should allow the private sector to run down railway infrastructures and services which they have done nothing to create and which were and still are paid for by the taxpayer, in the name of free competition. In the middle of a serious recession in the economy, in energy, in road, air and sea transport and in the environmental sector, big business has seen the potential in the railways for saving energy and cutting costs – and hence making a profit – and has turned its attention to rail transport and is trying to penetrate it ‘‘as an equal partner’’, although in practice there is nothing ‘‘equal’ about it in relation to the nationalised railway companies. In other words, the Commission proposals – and unfortunately these reports go along with them – care nothing for quality, the cost of transport or the safety of users, all of which have been blown out of the water by the philosophy of unbridled competition and the profitability of capital, leaving the way free for private investors to ransack the profitable rail transport sector and dump responsibility for exorbitant infrastructure building and maintenance costs and the unprofitable side of rail transport on the public sector. As you will have gathered, we totally oppose proposals for any moderate, calculated liberalisation of the railways because it paves the way for full liberalisation with all the adverse consequences that will have on the travelling public."@en1

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