Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-06-Speech-4-012"
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"en.20031106.1.4-012"2
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"Mr President, firstly, may I say to many colleagues here who are directly affected in the Limburg region, that I represent a region in the United Kingdom, the West Midlands, which has probably been more affected by structural change in the automotive industry than any other region in Europe. I want to say to colleagues from Limburg that we have had that experience and we now have a thriving automotive industry in the United Kingdom; we have more international car manufacturers assembling cars in the United Kingdom than any other country in the European Union.
If colleagues from Limburg would like to come and talk to me about our experience in the West Midlands, we can show you the programmes we have put in place, not just to retrain and redeploy people, but also to help those smaller companies in the supply chain affected by changes in production. So please colleagues, do not be overly depressed about it, there are ways forward.
It is important that we are having our debate today in the context of the future of the automotive industry because the issues surrounding the decision that Ford was forced to make at Genk go to the heart of our thinking on how we need to secure a long-term sustainable future for automotive manufacture in Europe, the technology and the jobs that go with it, and I and many colleagues here have a huge interest in that.
We know that the car companies will continue to make and must make huge investments in the next generation of lighter and more fuel-efficient cars that we want, and our colleague from the Green Party made that point earlier; but those investments will come from profits – there is not going to be any state subsidy for those – and what we want are profitable car companies.
I want to give you an important figure which relates to the Genk issue. 70% of the world's car industry's profits are generated in the United States market because that is where they sell larger cars. The reason for the lay-offs at Genk is because demand for one of Ford’s largest models has fallen off dramatically. Ford has announced that it is going to make the next generation Ford Mondeo at Genk and our job is to ensure that we have a demand for that car.
My conclusion for you, Commissioner, is that we want joined-up policy. If your colleagues in DG Environment continue to press the industry to make smaller, lighter cars without any commercial regard for what is going on, then we will be back here again. If we have joined-up policy-making, however, we will have a long-term, sustainable future for automotive manufacture in Europe."@en1
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