Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-26-Speech-3-019"
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"en.20050126.6.3-019"2
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".
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, because of the Treaties, the Commission enjoys a twofold political privilege: the privilege of time – it is effectively free of electoral constraints for five years – and the privilege of initiative in the general interest of the Union, as stated in the draft Constitution.
It is very difficult, Mr President of the Commission, not to agree with the proposals that you have put forward. I therefore feel that, as things stand, our Group can recommend that you put your plans into action. I should also like to return – and I allude here to a motion for a resolution that we tabled in December jointly with the other political groups – to four or five points relating to political elections, which strike me as significant and which are all in fact already being discussed in 2005.
The first of these is the EU’s budget, to which you alluded. The European Greens feel that the Prodi Commission’s proposal on the Union’s budget ceiling is an absolute minimum, and in fact too low. We therefore support your proposal, Mr Barroso, just as we support the intention to redirect Union expenditure; for example, European funding is to be set up for Natura 2000; in the field of research, funding earmarked for nuclear energy is to be redirected towards renewable energy or towards the Commission’s programme on intelligent energy, a further means of reducing the risks to the public; and European funding for culture and education is to be increased, so that more students and creators can help raise awareness of what is happening in Europe. We certainly support the Commission in its responsibility, which consists of reminding the Council and the Heads of State or Government that, indeed, as you have said, it is not possible for a European Union of 25 Member States and 450 million inhabitants to succeed on the budgets that some governments wish to set aside for it.
My second point concerns the REACH legislation, which is genuinely intended to protect human health, while fostering technological innovation in the chemical industry. We hope that the Commission will maintain its proposal so that Parliament can deliver its opinion at first reading and that we do not postpone the entire package once again. Furthermore, the Greens would also like to enrich this proposal with other considerations, such as the obligation to replace very dangerous substances.
My third point relates to the proposed law on the internal services market. As things stand, this will lead to increased competition between economies, without sufficiently regulating the conditions of that competition, thereby paving the way for social dumping in the Union. The country of origin principle cannot be retained as a guiding principle in this proposal for a directive.
As regards the assessment of Union policy, the Luxembourg Presidency was right, in its Presidency text, to state that assessment of all Union policy regarding the criteria of sustainable development must not be deemed of secondary importance and must not therefore be pushed aside by the Lisbon Strategy. In this regard, we look forward to the Commission’s report on the consistency of policies, such as transport policy or energy policy in respect of the EU’s international commitments within the framework of the climate convention.
I shall conclude, Mr President, by saying that the Union must continue to play a leading role in international climate negotiations and must immediately undertake to achieve objectives set for 2020 – we are already looking much further ahead – objectives that entail much greater energy-saving efforts than those we are currently making."@en1
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