Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-26-Speech-3-157"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20051026.17.3-157"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
".
Thank you very much, Mr Helmer, for those constructive thoughts. If indeed you are the future of the UK Conservative Party, we look forward to a long term in office!
Ms Frassoni
that is about the limit I am afraid! You asked at an earlier meeting and again today about the areas in which we would cooperate in research and development. I said to you then that biotechnology is one very clear area. This is a major area for the whole development of healthcare and for business in the future. Europe should be a leader in biotechnology, and if we are not careful we are going to be overtaken even by countries like India.
Environmental technology is another area. I want to give one example that I think people would have been deeply sceptical about 20 or 30 years ago. It took some imagination from people at that time to put the concept of Airbus together. Over these past few years, we have gone from a position where Boeing was literally completely dominant in the market to a situation where Airbus today is a European venture of which we can be proud and which is competing with the very best anywhere in the world.
Sometimes it helps if we pool together in Europe our research, our development and our innovation across Europe in order to get the scale of challenge that we need implemented. If we are able to do that, and if we are able to meet the scale of the challenge in the way I have suggested, I think, in other areas, too, we can develop world-beating companies across Europe.
Mr Wurtz, I do not know who your interlocutors were in the UK, but I will give you some new ones when you come next time, if you do not mind! Let me just say to you, in respect of unemployment, that we have two million more jobs in the UK. The New Deal for the Unemployed is the biggest programme of any country in Europe to tackle unemployment. We were the government that introduced for the first time, in the teeth of Conservative opposition, a statutory minimum wage. We have the working families’ tax credit and other help for the low paid. We have lifted 700 000 children out of poverty and two million pensioners out of acute hardship, and our public services have meant that we have the best school results, and falling hospital waiting lists, for the first time in 20 years. That is a very good social record.
However, I have to say to you that it has always been my experience in politics that at a certain point there are parts of the Left that join forces with the Right to decry modern progressive governments.
Mr Farage, you talked about Commissioner Verheugen’s agenda for getting rid of redundant legislation and, as far as I can make out, you actually applauded what he was doing but thought that he had used the wrong terminology. I do not really care what terminology he uses, but it is important, when the European Commission is getting rid of unnecessary regulation, that there is a place, as I said to you in our meeting earlier, both for better regulation and deregulation. Sometimes, Europe needs to regulate, and then it is the correct thing for Europe to do. But Europe should only regulate where it is necessary and Europe should not interfere in areas where it is unnecessary. I think that is the right position for us.
Mr Crowley, I heard what you said on the common agricultural policy. Again, I understand. Of course we are not saying we can change the whole system overnight; what we are saying is that we should in the future have a different perspective for reform.
I want to finish on this point: there is a responsibility on the UK Presidency and the Council; there is a responsibility, of course, on the European Commission. There is a responsibility also on this body, on Parliament, and our common responsibility is this: at the present time, the real danger that we face in Europe is that our citizens and our people are increasingly perceiving globalisation as a threat. However, globalisation, if we are intelligent about how we handle its consequences, is not a threat: it is an opportunity for us.
Yes, it is true that, when you go to China and India, you are struck by the sheer size of the scaling-up of their industry and their business. Incidentally, it is no longer true that China, India and other countries like them are competing on the low-value-added goods and services. They are now competing at the top end of the market as well – it is true. That does not just apply to China and India, incidentally. There are countries such as Vietnam, for example, that a few years ago people thought of in a completely different context, but today it is an emerging economy. All of this is true. It poses a huge competitive challenge, but it also poses a huge competitive opportunity for us because those countries are going to need financial services; those countries are going to need technology; those countries are going to be importing goods as well as exporting goods.
We have to have the confidence in the European Union to overcome that competitive challenge. It is not a question of abandoning social solidarity. If we end up having the debate in those terms, it will lead absolutely nowhere. No one is going to believe that it is right for the European Union to abandon its social dimension. I support the social dimension in Europe, but it has got to be one that enhances our competitive challenge for today’s world. Why? Because, if our businesses are not succeeding, if our workforce is not competitive, if we do not put people back into jobs, what is the social dimension? It can only be a true social dimension if it enhances the prosperity, the living standards and economic future of our people. That is what this debate is about.
So, of course, in the modern world, with the single market being completed, it is true that there will be competitive challenges as our markets open up, but there will also be opportunities. Yes, it is true in today’s world that there will be delocalisation; that will happen. However, we can re-train, re-skill. We can give people support in finding new jobs. We can, for example in areas such as work/life balance and the social security systems, find new and better ways of supporting people.
This is not a process about abandoning the social dimension of Europe; it is a process that is about change. And change, after all, is what the European Union has always been about. The European Union should be the institution, above all, that can be confident about changing. It was change that led to the European Union. It was change that led Europe, in the wreckage of war, to decide that its future was going to be different to its past. Look what we have today: countries living and working together in solidarity.
The answer to anybody – British Euro-sceptic or Euro-sceptics from other countries – is ‘look at this Parliament today, the different countries that are here, the accession countries freed from tyranny and dictatorship, here, as part of this Parliament’. Why should we not be confident?
Yes Sir, and your country is now in the European Union thanks to the strength of Europe!
Of course, we can make this competitive challenge work for us. We, in Europe, who have managed to overcome war and disease, who have created 50 years of prosperity – are we really incapable of modernising our social model in the way that we want? Of course not! We can do it, and we can do it if we have confidence. We can do it if we are prepared to face up to challenges in a realistic way. And we can do it if we listen to our people.
What our people are saying to us today is something very simple about Europe. They are not saying – which is why I disagree with Euro-sceptics – ‘we do not want Europe’. They are saying ‘let Europe answer the concerns we have. We are worried about globalisation, we are worried about security and terrorism, we are worried about the threat to our environment’. Let Europe be relevant on these issues. That is how we rebuild support for the European Union.
Let me try and respond to the points that have been made, and, as Henry VIII said to his wives, ‘I will not keep you long’!
I said to you when I came to this Parliament back in June that the first vote I ever had was in the referendum on Europe. I voted ‘yes’ and I have never regretted it. I am a pro-European, I have always been one and I will remain one. But it is the pro-Europeans that need to lead the case for modernisation and change.
Do you believe that the Euro-sceptics want change? They would delight if Europe did not change since it would allow them to replay what is essentially a narrow nationalist argument within the frame of making Europe more effective.
That is why it is up to us to take these measures forward.
Tomorrow, we will have the informal summit. Let us agree the Commission paper. Then, let the action follow, not just from the Council and the Commission, but from here in this Parliament too. Let us act together and make a Europe relevant to its citizens a reality. We can do it. We can do it if we have the confidence, the belief in ourselves and the courage to make the changes our citizens want. That is what I say and that is what we shall do.
If I can begin, first of all, by welcoming very much what President Barroso said; obviously I agree strongly with it. The Presidency and the European Commission have been working carefully on the Commission paper that is the subject of our meeting tomorrow. I shall try to deal with some specific points and then come to one general point.
In relation to what Mr Poettering was saying, I agree entirely with the point on the WTO; it is very important, and everyone understands we cannot get immediate change fundamentally to the common agricultural policy, but it is important we get a forward perspective of change. In respect of the fund, I think we are in agreement: if this fund is about helping people cope with the consequences of globalisation, that is a good thing. If it is simply about propping up companies that have failed, that is obviously not something we want to do. But it is very much the former and not the latter.
Secondly, in relation to what Mr Schulz was saying: first of all, can I thank you very much for those words about 7 July and the terrorist attacks in the UK. It means a lot to my country to have you say that; thank you.
In relation to the social model, I hope I can answer some of those points in a moment, but I would say again, right at the outset, that we should never destroy social solidarity. What we should always do is make it relevant for today’s world. That is the purpose of what we are doing.
In respect of the point that Mr Watson was making: I agree that I do not think it is choice between a liberalised Europe and a social Europe in that stark sense. I hope that the Commission paper and the new areas of work that we are proposing can get people out of feeling that they have to choose so starkly between the two."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
"(Mr Matsakis held up a placard which read: ‘Cyprus is still a British colony’)"1
"molte grazie"1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples