Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-25-Speech-2-010"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20051025.3.2-010"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, our group takes the view that this House possesses the self-evident right to call Members of the Commission – including its President – before it and to ask for their opinions. The President of the Commission has indicated that he was very much prepared to appear in Brussels, as, indeed, he is obliged to do when Parliament demands it. That he did not has something to do with those who were asking him to do so, and nothing whatever with him, so we thank him for doing his duty and being here today.
We must, of course, be very sensitive and take people’s concerns seriously. That was brought home to us by the two failed referendums earlier this year. There is nothing clever, though, about politicians who keep trying to shift blame towards Brussels and get it to carry the can. If statements by a Member of the Commission are used as a pretext for covering up one’s own mistakes and omissions, then that is something of which this House cannot approve.
The people of Central and Eastern Europe have stood up for freedom, democracy and self-determination, and have done so with great success. In so doing, they have won for themselves the right to become members of the community that is the European Union. As we see it, there is no doubt whatever that they can therefore lay claim to all the rights associated with that status, and must not be treated as second-class Europeans. That is what this is about. By that shall we be judged. We will not allow this European Community to be divided up, with citizens and states allotted to first or second class within it; on the contrary, we are one single common European Union, and, as such, we practise solidarity. We defend our social model, and the internal market forms part of it, for it offers us the only opportunity to make ourselves competitive on a global scale. These are the principles by which our group stands.
Commissioner McCreevy’s statements in Stockholm were not intended to call into question the Swedish social model, or to attack the Swedish social partners’ right to determine wages. The EU Services Directive was not a point at issue, nor was he talking about any decision to be taken by Parliament, the Council or the Commission; on the contrary, he was referring to a case before the European Court of Justice.
When Commissioner McCreevy, at the beginning of October, told an audience in Stockholm that the Commission supported a Latvian building firm in its dispute with a Swedish building workers’ trade union, he was doing what the Commission is obliged to do by the Treaties, that being to act as the guardian of the law and of rights – in this instance, the right to the freedom to provide services. In so doing, far from calling into question Sweden’s traditional system of collective agreements, he was trying to make it clear that this system, like all others, has to respond to the establishment of the internal market.
Let me take this opportunity to point out that other countries – for example, the country from which Mr Schulz comes – have already responded by availing themselves of the provisions made by the Posting of Workers Directive for the building sector, or of the option provided for in the accession negotiations, namely of enacting transitional regulations for workers from the states that most recently joined the EU. It is evident that the Swedish Government is trying to draw attention away from its own failings.
There is no other explanation for the attempt by the Swedish Minister for the Economy to exert pressure on the European institutions by threatening to withdraw his country’s support for the Services Directive. His motives are transparent and his actions unacceptable to us.
The Services Directive has nothing whatever to do with the case under consideration. What is at issue is the interpretation of the law as it stands, which nobody wants to change. I would like to say, on behalf of my group, the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, that nobody in our ranks has any desire to use the Services Directive to alter labour law or the laws on collective bargaining, and certainly not to impose restrictions upon them. Those who make assertions to the contrary are trying to frighten people and whip up anti-European sentiment."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples