Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-10-Speech-2-330"
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"en.20050510.27.2-330"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by highlighting the laudable and tangible determination of everyone concerned to reach agreement in this problematic matter. Let me, then, take this opportunity to thank the rapporteur, Mr Zappalà, and the Members from the various groups – Mrs Weiler, Mr Wuermeling, and also Mr Manders from my own group. There really has been very constructive cooperation, including, in the final stage, on the part of the Commission and the Council.
I think it should be stressed that this directive now enables us to achieve three essential things. The first is that we are closer to completing the internal market. Secondly, we are doing something to protect the consumer. Thirdly, we are helping to reduce bureaucracy.
Let me start with the completion of the internal market. The directive on professional qualifications is a vital step towards overcoming the barriers that exist in practice to freedom of movement and the freedom to provide services on our common internal market, and, in consequence, quite crucial in terms of making the EU’s citizens more mobile. It must also be borne in mind, in connection with the freedom to provide services, that EU citizens will in future be acquiring a kind of driving licence, with which they can set off, with no fear of hindrance or discrimination, into the countries of the European Union, whether to settle down in one of them or to offer their services on a temporary basis. At the same time, everything that is subject to the special provisions of this directive is removed from the scope of the services directive, about which there has been much discussion. This leads me to hope that our agreement today will serve to objectify the debate on this important project.
If I may turn, secondly, to consumer protection, let me say that, whereas the services directive will govern the conditions under which service providers may operate, this directive is intended to ensure the necessary standard of professional qualifications. This is in itself a significant achievement in terms of the protection of European consumers, in that they are given a guarantee that service providers do only those things that they are recognised as qualified to do. We have therefore managed, by doing away with ‘qualification shopping’, to build in a safety mechanism to obviate the obtaining of entitlements by false pretences and this, too, is important in terms of consumer protection. I might add that I am very pleased that it has been possible to bring the professional associations on board for the comitology procedure. Their expertise will be very valuable. It will, however, also be very important to include most of the artisanal crafts and trades in Annex II, enabling their particular qualifications to be given the recognition they deserve.
My third point has to do with the cutting back of red tape. Over the past years, the existing rules on professional recognition became a rag rug of multifarious parallel regulations in different versions, all of which the public found complicated, baffling and, quite simply, scarcely manageable. What we see happening with this directive, the objective of which is to bring together these various pieces of legislation, is a necessary paradigm shift from a bewildering multiplicity of approaches to regulation to one single general approach, finally subjecting various professions to a single legal regime that, being anchored to certain standards of qualification, helps to promote deregulation.
The adoption of the proposal for a directive, scheduled for tomorrow, is therefore a crucial step towards the completion of the European internal market, and one in favour of which my group will be voting. I would like to add that I believe we should be conducting this debate in Brussels rather than in Strasbourg."@en1
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