Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-13-Speech-3-014"
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"en.20050413.2.3-014"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for once there is also some good news for the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance in the conclusions of a European Council. It does not happen often, and perhaps that is why President Barroso said that the Greens are outside the system or anti-system. I do not believe that, and I hope to use the years and months that are left before the end of the parliamentary term to change his mind.
I also say that because we are not particularly pleased to note that the Commission held back precisely on the four points in this summit that we considered relatively positive, because it had taken a different position. The points are these: reform of the Stability Pact; precise target figures for the Kyoto Protocol, which the Commission unfortunately decided not to mention; redressing the balance of the Lisbon Strategy in terms of environmental and social sustainability, albeit still in a vague and imprecise way; and a kind of new-found understanding of reality with regard to the Bolkestein directive – although it is very hard to admit, even here in Parliament, that a directive on services of general interest needs to be drawn up before the Bolkestein directive is approved.
Even we believe that the reform of the Stability Pact has been a good thing and that it is now much more able to take account of the general economic situation and specific national situations. Of course, these positive aspects are strongly counterbalanced by the fact that the rules on the quality of spending are still too vague. For instance, choosing to invest up to EUR 700 million a year in building the international experimental thermonuclear reactor when even the most optimistic commentators do not expect that it can be used before 2050 – if ever – means not recognising the urgent need to implement the Kyoto Protocol or the potential of renewable forms of energy, and not investing in the latter sector. We see that as a serious mistake.
In addition, unfortunately, we have to recognise that during the European Council no account whatsoever was taken of the fact that a healthy macroeconomic environment must include taxation reform, so that the tax burden that today falls on employment is shifted onto environmental degradation, helping to make regular employment more attractive. That is what Jacques Delors was saying in 1992, and we have not made any progress at all since then.
President Barroso, Commissioner Verheugen, I think we should really learn something from the sad story of Italy’s economy and its Government, which came to power promising a new economic miracle by cutting taxes and environmental rules, and today the country is bottom of the table for growth and competitiveness in Europe. We believe, President Barroso, that the European Union needs to make itself seen and heard, partly to win the Constitution referendum in France and to convince citizens that European added value really exists, so that the Commission’s initiative in the framework of the Lisbon Strategy can result in new legislation. We are not happy with the fact that the Commission is content to play a coordinating role. We do not think that is enough, because it means that for French voters and others the only message coming out of Europe is that of the Bolkestein directive, the patentability of software and
policies in the economic and social fields.
That is not what we want. We believe that we need to move in a different direction and, above all, we call on the Presidency and on President Barroso to take more notice of what we – and also the Commission – have called ‘the ecoefficiency revolution’. The ecoefficiency industry and companies of this kind are growing at a rate of 5% a year at the moment, and we believe we should be investing much more in this sector and taking it more seriously. Lastly, I agree with everything Mr Watson said, with just one exception: my group and I do not believe that hurrying and pushing and fighting with our backs to the wall for the accession of Bulgaria and Romania will help us to convince the Bulgarians, Romanians or Europeans of the feasibility of the project."@en1
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