Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-14-Speech-3-291"
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"en.20040114.7.3-291"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the initiative to draft this report derives from our common conviction of the need to speed up the Barcelona process and, specifically, the need to strengthen the European economy and the European job market by creating new, high-quality jobs.
The services sector includes a wide range of services in the public and private sectors. It is the fastest growing and developing sector in the European economy. Over the last 20 years, around 2/3 of the growth in the gross domestic product of the European Union has come from the services sector, while the greatest increase in the employment rate has again been in this sector. Today, services account for approximately 69% of total employment. The aim of our policy must be to increase this percentage and it is worth mentioning that, in the United States, the corresponding figure is 80%. At the same time, we must pay attention to the fact that the situation in the development of the services sector differs from one Member State to another in the European Union. The countries with the most serious structural problems, such as Greece and Portugal, have the lowest employment rates in services. The rates are equally low, with the exception of Cyprus, in the new Member States.
Our policy, at both European and national level, must play a significant role in the development of services. Successful regulation of the services markets is genuinely important for protecting consumer interests, ensuring quality and guaranteeing fair competition. There are still very inflexible regulations, however, which are stifling economic activity. As a matter of urgency, accurately targeted measures must be drawn up and implemented to guarantee a satisfactory level of protection in such a way that service providers and services themselves can establish themselves throughout Community territory.
Similarly, without modern, low-cost infrastructures, Europe cannot hope to meet the challenges in store for it, given the fact that international competitiveness in services is constantly increasing throughout the world. The completion of this infrastructure depends upon the liberalisation of the energy and telecommunications markets, so that we have easy and cheap access to them, and on the trans-European networks programme, in order to increase the potential of the market.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs calls on the European Commission to publish a White Paper, proposing separate employment policies for each sector, so that we soon see the completion of a successful European market. The Committee also calls on the European Commission to propose a directive on services within the framework of the internal market, in order to deal with obstacles to the movement of workers and the provision of services. However, the Member States also need to restrict their bureaucratic procedures, both for the start-up and for the operation of services.
An appropriate framework of conditions needs to created, with regulatory and financial provisions and provisions on fair competition; new forms of employment in the services sector, such as part-time work, teleworking and temporary work, need to be strengthened; conditions need to be created for an appropriate, flexible and productive workforce that receives ongoing training; safe and healthy working conditions need to be created and undeclared work which, apart from debasing employment and workers, is a source of distortion of competition, needs to be combated. Investment is also needed in innovation in the services sector, because at the moment industry has the greatest interest in investment in innovation. We therefore need, both in the private sector and in the public sector, which is lagging well behind, to invest in innovation and research and to link our policy on services with policy to strengthen small and medium-sized enterprises and the industrial sector in general, because industry and services are interdependent. We need to develop entrepreneurship in young people and promote self-employment, because the development of new activities in services calls for daring, imagination and innovation."@en1
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