Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-25-Speech-2-154"
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"en.20051025.20.2-154"2
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"I find it hard to know whether Mr Horáček was talking about the situation in the old EU Member States, or that in Romania and Bulgaria. The European Union is supposedly founded upon certain basic principles. These include the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital, and, perhaps even more importantly, the European social model, non-interference in the domestic affairs of Member States and solidarity. Last but not least, they also include the environment as a priority issue.
The basic question that needs to be asked about the accession of Romania and Bulgaria is whether we really want to accept these countries into an EU of 27 as equals. Quite apart from whether the citizens of these new Member States will enjoy genuinely equal treatment – and it emerges from the reports that have been tabled that this is a far-off prospect, rather than a given from the date of accession to the European Union – one of the EU’s most important values, albeit one that is now frequently called into question, is the European social model. In my opinion, any attempts to liberalise social values along the lines of the Bolkestein directive on services are entirely inappropriate. I am not alone in this view, as proven by today’s reactions to Commissioner McCreevy’s speech in Sweden.
We must not allow the low social standards in some of the new Member States to be used as a battering ram to reverse the social achievements of more advanced Member States. We should be aware that the welfare state and respect for environmental standards are among the most important of the European Union’s values. These values, and the resulting strength of the Community’s social foundations, ensure its superiority over models in which such values are not recognised, and which allow unrestrained liberalism to prevail over social cohesion.
It is our duty to help the new Member States to achieve the best possible conditions and to negotiate appropriate transitional periods when Romania and Bulgaria join the Community, instead of harping on about problems in these new Member States that we ourselves face in our own countries. The Czech people enjoy particularly close and friendly relations with Romania and Bulgaria, and these relations date back many years. We are in favour of the two countries joining us on 1 January 2007, and we would like to congratulate them on moving another step closer to the European Union."@en1
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