Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-02-Speech-2-155"
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"en.20030902.7.2-155"2
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"Madam President, I too can say that I am delighted with the Commission's attempt to simplify the promotion of mobility, for that is really what this is about. We all want citizens to be able to really demand justice in the free movement of workers. This has not been a success to date. Just one look at the statistics shows us that only around 2% of the citizens work in another country. However, I should in this respect also like to deliver a few notes of discord which do not concern Parliament. Once again, we have managed to work well with the fellow MEPs. As Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has stated, work with the European Commission was also perfectly feasible. I did, however, see it as a sword of Damocles that the European Council is threatening to call it a day after all if we do not bring our requirements under control. I find this hard to take, certainly where frontier work is concerned. I should like to underpin this with a few examples. In my area, which is between the Belgian border zone – in which I live – and the Netherlands, the opportunity is currently presenting itself to deploy 800 workers at a large company, Volvo, just across the border. People will certainly be recruited from my area. I still, however, hesitate to advise people to actually do this unless 100% guarantees can be given concerning sound and proper social security. I find it impossible to explain to, for example, a 62-year old lady who has become disabled, that she will lose her disability pension in Belgium and will not qualify for old-age pension in the Netherlands until she reaches the age of 65. These are all situations that cannot be accounted for because there is insufficient coordination at the moment. For that reason, we have all joined forces and tabled yet a few more amendments to avoid scenarios of this kind in future. With these amendments, we want to force the institutions and the Member States to coordinate their efforts more effectively. The amendments tabled by us, fortunately by a number of groups together, pertain to very specific cases which often affect frontier workers. This receives my support. In my view, it is unacceptable for the Member States not to be able, and willing, to acknowledge this problem. Surely we cannot have a situation where a united Europe is being sabotaged because a number of national officials and politicians treat frontier work as a marginal issue. I am therefore pleased that in its proposal, the European Commission is making every effort to enforce cooperation by the Member States. As soon as this regulation has been adopted, I hope that it will actually be enforced, and I would urge the Commission to see that it is."@en1
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