Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-13-Speech-4-118"
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"en.20030313.4.4-118"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, I hope it is not because we are discussing industrial desertification that Mr Fischler is here. I do not agree with his analysis, because I consider that the Union possesses substantial levers to influence the businesses subsidised by Europe that are now delocalising left, right and centre. I also think that we cannot constantly leave globalisation on the sidelines because, ultimately, this debate concerns the socio-economic development of the Community as a whole. It raises the issue of European policy, the legal framework adopted in response to the groundswell of globalisation and unprincipled, uncontrolled liberalism.
The Union is still the most significant interlocutor and player we have to respond to these global phenomena. This needs to be said and we must not doubt it. What you are proposing will no longer suffice. Many legislative frameworks still remain to be established in order to provide investors in Europe with minimum guarantees, and thus provide millions of our fellow citizens with guarantees of job security and lasting employment.
In view of the recent industrial upheavals that have devastated many regions of our Member States, from Portugal to my own region of Lorraine, and that are now affecting the candidate countries themselves, we need to make a clean sweep of this situation of economic non-law and establish a new order between Community bodies and private investors. Having been elected by these specific regions, we can no longer allow the European Union to remain a kind of Wild West for Community bounty hunters who receive public funds in order to increase investment in employment areas and are now shredding our entire industrial fabric by delocalising.
Metalworking and textiles are not the only industries affected by industrial desertification. The tertiary sector, businesses with a high added value such as Daewoo and Philips, are also affected. What will be left in future if the European Union fails to tackle its investment flow, if it proves unable to implement a code of rights and duties each time subsidies are negotiated. Once these industrial crises are over, we must learn from them in order to establish clear employment obligations in the area of quality, quantity and durability in proportion with each Community subsidy.
You may recall, for example, that, from 1988 to 1995, the Longwy employment area in Lorraine was so badly damaged by the heavy industry crisis that it did not require any guarantees before welcoming Daewoo, even though the company was strongly backed by Community aid. Daewoo is now quite simply and unabashedly abandoning its workforce without any kind of restriction. Although the framework for such aid has since been reinforced, it is clearly not yet sufficient, and neither are your proposals, Commissioner, to restore the confidence of our fellow citizens in European Union social policy and increase control under Community legislation, in order to guarantee social and working conditions in this area we are creating.
The European Union must no longer be simply a source of cash, but must now insist, as others have done in the past, ‘
to those who would swindle the Community out of its funding. The sustainable development of our continent, which is its only long-term prospect, must be achieved through the threefold social policy of progress, respect for the environment and a regulated, fraternal economic policy. We must put an end to the poor practice of the past, and that is what you are failing to do, Commissioner. Let us now force businesses that have failed to fulfil detailed commitments to reimburse their subsidies. That will be the price paid by Europe, but if Europe is to have a future, it will be at that price."@en1
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"I want my money back’,"1
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