Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-02-13-Speech-1-120"
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"en.20060213.12.1-120"2
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".
Mr President, first of all, I should like to add my voice in support of Mr Hökmark’s excellent report, which we as a group will be backing, and we also support the choice which the Commission has made in favour of less and better-targeted state support, in which respect I should like to stress once again, lest we forget, that the amounts involved are actually lower. State support should be a last resort and is not a panacea. Although it may be presented in that way from time to time, it also has adverse side effects.
As Mr Savary mentioned a moment ago, legal certainty and clarity are urgently needed for those public services.
I should like to finish by asking the Commission to submit, at the earliest opportunity, an assessment of the impact which the rules that the Commission adopted last year had on State aid as compensation for public services. I would like to know the amount of State aid involved, the number of companies involved and what impact this had on the market.
At the same time, we can be open-handed in granting state support only after all pre-conditions and our other items of policy have been complied with, or else we would end up fighting a running battle. We must, for example, ensure that the internal market is completed and functions well and in that respect, I hope that this House will be taking a sensible decision on Thursday with regard to the services directive.
We must counter protectionism, promote fair competition, abolish red tape and excessive legislation, guarantee better access to risk capital and also establish an internal market for financial services, but at the same time, we must put in place such things as truly free movement for workers from all EU Member States and an immigration policy that is geared towards keeping the brightest and best, our top people, in Europe rather than chasing them away to the United States.
Only when those things are in place can we see whether we might be able to intervene with State aid where the market is inefficient, for we are not so much dealing with market failure as we are with market inefficiencies.
I should also like to repeat that State aid should, in principle, not be sanctioned. It disrupts the market and distorts competition. Mr Savary said a moment ago that the EU has a tendency to be too liberal, but I should like to draw Mr Savary’s attention to the fact that we spend billions on State aid each year. Even by the most conservative estimates, the amounts involved are more or less half of the EU’s budget, so that is not terribly liberal in my view. Things could be a bit more liberal as far as I am concerned.
I also agree with what Mr Savary said a moment ago: we must set aside State aid for the priorities of the twenty-first century: the Lisbon objectives, innovation, knowledge, sustainability …
Consequently, I think that we should give far less State aid to obsolete and obsolescent industries, and as far as State aid for environmental objectives is concerned, I think we should first set to abolishing the billions of State aid we grant the many polluting industries and sectors that make use of sources of non-renewable energy, and I will therefore advise my group to support Mr Lipietz’s amendments to that effect.
Global context is also important in the debate. We cannot deny, of course, that in other parts of the world, liberal amounts of State aid are still being given out. That much we should recognise, but our objective to reduce State aid remains intact.
Finally, I should like to say a few words on public services. I should like to repeat – and I am increasingly feeling like a voice in the wilderness in this respect – that the phrases ‘services of general interest’ and ‘services of general economic interest’ have still not been defined, and it is, in that light, very odd to legislate for them. That is just by the by."@en1
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