Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-02-09-Speech-1-099"
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"en.20040209.7.1-099"2
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".
Mr President, this report is based on two Commission communications, both of which are evidence of the efforts the Commission is making to take action in the areas to which they refer, whilst not drawing a veil over the highly contradictory way in which the process is moving now that it is underway. It follows that the underlying principle – of cautious and balanced actions – is the right one. The Commission has various options in mind for the reform process, and the report makes reference to them.
For the rapporteur, the most important thing is still that every orientation and every reform measure must be aimed at combating poverty, consistently and without ideological blinkers. Containing poverty, and eventually overcoming it, will be the greatest challenge facing the human race in the twenty-first century. The progress made so far is, however, modest at best, and new setbacks are constantly hindering or even nullifying it.
It is for that reason that the report, like the Commission communication, discusses a wide variety of options, although there is no mistaking the different emphases and priorities adopted by the Commission and the rapporteur. Although services of general interest are the subject of controversy in the Member States of the European Union, they may, in those countries, be regarded as relatively stable, but problems are nevertheless ever-present. That is far more the case in the developing countries and will remain so for longer, for they often totter on the brink of a catastrophe. The European Union’s efforts should, above all, be devoted to supporting and motivating them. Whilst the Commission, and also several of my fellow-Members of this House, are strongly in favour of privatisation, all the experience we have had, including in the EU’s Member States, leads me to urge that, along with a responsible role for the public sector and the State, the focus should be on cooperative solutions and also the involvement of the private sector in these states. In the private business sector, priority should be given to the promotion and development of small- and medium-sized enterprises, which lay the foundation for more jobs and self-supporting economic development in developing countries.
I cannot, in principle, endorse Mr Deva’s amendments. Were they to be adopted, the report would lose its critical view of things and would not be equal to the nuanced handling of the reform process that is necessary. Nor, too, are they in line with the primary tendency of the report as adopted by the committee. Finally, they do not go as far as the Commission in terms of willingness to enter into dialogue, and are incompatible with the character of the reform process.
As rapporteur, I have endeavoured to propose and achieve workable solutions. Far from sticking rigidly to principles and to ideological points of view, everything should be subordinated to the great goal of the war on poverty."@en1
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