Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-13-Speech-4-119"
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"en.20030213.5.4-119"2
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"Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I also found the Commissioner’s response distressing. I felt as though I were looking at the list of contents of a first aid kit, when the accident has happened and, of course, we believe it is inevitable. We should not, however, bury our heads in the sand, because here we are facing a perfect example of deregulated globalisation.
When in March 2002 – almost exactly a year ago, so it will soon be the anniversary – the protectionist measure in the American steel industry was justified by the wish to protect their national steel against an alleged invasion of low-cost products, Europe decided, through Mr Lamy and the Commission, to retaliate. Commissioner Lamy therefore told us, before this House, that the European Union intended to defend its industries and jobs by taking all available measures. Mr Lamy also stipulated that these defence measures should take place within the strict framework of the Union’s international commitments, namely within the World Trade Organisation. In the same speech, Mr Lamy described our steel industry as restructured, productive, strong and competitive, adding that he admitted we had paid an extremely high social and financial price between 1980 and 1990, but that we could now be proud because the overall result was positive and, in particular, because we no longer needed to fear the future. Around the same time, he visited the Sidmar de Gand factory, a production unit belonging to the Arcelor group, the same company that is now throwing thousands of workers out into the streets and plunging a region into despair.
It was clearly out of the question for Europe to become a kind of Wild West, where everyone can do what they like, with the strongest inevitably triumphing over the weakest. The Commission recognised that the lack of legal rules left the field open for power struggles alone, and that is why we reacted by observing the rules and the law. We are now facing a disorganised world trade system, where Arcelor did not wait for market regulation because in fact that is what this is about. American protectionism has consequences for all of us, which led Arcelor to impose market regulation, in other words according to its own criteria, with a view to reassuring its shareholders, who were hungry for high profit margins.
At European Union level, we are therefore becoming a real Wild West in social terms. On a daily basis, multinationals – and I shall spare you the large companies that consider workers and small companies as nothing more than disposable tissues that can be thrown away once they have served their purpose – decide to implement job losses and close factories in order to open others elsewhere. They force national social systems to compete with each other and drive countries to restrict workers’ rights. Furthermore, these companies receive subsidies and sometimes even privileges. They do not respect their commitments, and find every possible loophole, even those that can still be found in the enlargement system. The legislative arsenal of the European Union on social issues is clearly insufficient and there are still European political leaders, in particular within the Convention, who say that the European Union must not intervene in social policy matters.
Arcelor today, Renault Vilvoorde yesterday, these are the examples that have led us to fight, here in this House, to say that Europe must be a social Europe or nothing at all. In any case, we certainly cannot continue to infringe workers’ rights as we are doing. It is essential to ensure that companies shoulder their social responsibilities on a purely voluntary basis. In order to do so, we need a number of commitments. Europe is adept at pointing out the rules of an ambitious industrial policy: what can we do to remain competitive in the traditional production sectors such as steel, telecommunications, gas and electricity? This Europe could then, with no problems, observe in silence the restructuring and closures, and we, within this House, the elected Members of Parliament, representing the workers and the people, would accept that with our arms folded, opening the first aid kit and wondering how to call the Red Cross!
What is happening in the steel sector could have been anticipated. The Commission seems to be realising it for the first time, and we could be surprised. What I would like to say, Mr President, in conclusion, is that if the European integration process was conceived with the ECSC, whose obligations have already been recalled, if we do not want to tell the citizens once again that this Europe is not for them and that it is a Europe of money, I think we should develop a specific intervention model adapted to the steel problem."@en1
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