Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-22-Speech-3-042"

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"en.20031022.2.3-042"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is only right that the Convention’s draft should come to the conclusion that we have too little Europe rather than too much. That is why we need coordination not only of economic and financial policy, but also of social and employment policy as well. I believe that the initiative for growth and investment, which we are discussing, makes clear how feeble are our conceptions of how growth and employment are to be organised. That is why I would like to call on the Council and its President to speak in far more definite terms about the approaches we want to take. It is, I think, a good thing that we are going back to the infrastructure modernisation measures and thinking about energy and the environment rather than just transport. I think it right that we should give some thought to research and development, but we must, above all, get a skills offensive started in all Member States simultaneously, as we will not be able to increase growth without skilled people, nor will we be able to become a knowledge-based society in which everyone is able to participate. That is why everything possible has to be done to give us functioning social services, which should, in particular, help to reconcile work and family life, for women are indispensable if we are to achieve the higher employment rate that we need. Sweden, Denmark and Finland have shown the ways in which we can do this. The European Union has no lack of sources of funds, and I am not thinking only of the EIB or of the other options available. I cannot but consider the way in which, in this European Union, payment of VAT is evaded to the tune of an estimated EUR 100 billion a year, quite apart from other taxes. That would be more than these EUR 220 billion for ten years, and would enable us to get something really up and running. That is why it really is time for us not to do as your own country does and put our faith in tax amnesties, but to at last get round to coordinating mutual assistance by tax authorities as a means of dealing with the scandalous cross-border criminal activity involving fraudulent invoicing, the motor and mobile phone trades, and the use of VAT evasion as a means of funding other underhand activities; all of these things we must put the brakes on, halt them and put an end to them once and for all."@en1
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