Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-26-Speech-2-032"
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"en.20060926.3.2-032"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, crude and heedless deregulation has been the order of the day in Europe for a decade now, with fundamental services such as energy supply, great swathes of the transport sector, not to mention education, health, housing and hospitals being made subject to the rule of the markets and of profit, in part under the
of deregulatory legislation from Brussels, in part under pressure from the ECJ, and in part on the initiative of neo-liberal governments, the claims being made that it will bring more jobs, with competition bringing lower prices for consumers and inducing private investors moving their money around more efficiently. The record of deregulation over the past decade itself demonstrates how false these neo-liberal claims are; in the energy and postal sectors alone, hundreds of thousands of jobs have been wiped out, and those who still have a job generally find themselves working under worse conditions. You can rejoice in that and call it increased efficiency, or you can call it what it is – coercion and exploitation. Rarely have the consumers benefited from falling costs; in Germany, for example, electricity has never been as expensive as it is today.
That the report by the Social Democrat Mr Rapkay should transfigure this record into one of success and call for the deregulation of more sectors testifies ignorance of past experience and to an irresponsible attitude towards those who have to endure the consequences.
Those who call for services of general interest to be made subject to the rules of the internal market are seeking to turn health, education and mobility into saleable goods that only the affluent can afford, for capitalist markets, rather than meeting demand, respond only to those who not only have demands but also the ability to pay, that being the only way to turn a profit. That may be the sort of Europe that the rich and big business dream of, but the Left is dreaming of other things, and we, together with Europe’s social movements, shall not cease from resisting this sort of unfettered capitalism."@en1
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