Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-11-14-Speech-2-201"
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"en.20061114.36.2-201"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if you, as I have done, read the Commission programme for 2007 carefully, you will actually say, with some satisfaction, that this is a good programme. If all this becomes reality, we will be able to be satisfied, proud and happy.
While we are talking about this strategic work programme, perhaps I might say something else to the President of the Commission about his new Commission, for the Commission sitting here is an old one, to be joined by two new Commissioners. I have read, Mr President of the Commission, that you want to give the Romanian candidate the job of Commissioner for Multilingualism. I am sure that, as the hearings progress, I will find out more about what is meant by that, but I have to say that I think it rather insubstantial. The multilingualism portfolio is not worthy of Mr Orban, nor does it make sufficient demands of a Commissioner, and so I do not understand why he is being given such a thin portfolio.
I surmise that it reflects the view that we have to watch out for Europe’s diversity, that we have to safeguard and sustain the European Union’s multilingual character, and that we think is absolutely the right thing to do, so why not create a proper portfolio for it?
Something that this House has had to discuss over and over again during the last few plenary sessions is the threats facing minorities in the European Union, among them a growing potential for extremism, not least of a right-wing nature, for xenophobia and anti-Semitism, for minorities, even in the European Union, are increasingly under threat, under attack, and in need of protection. Minorities, and, for example, their languages, are a sign of the diversity that makes Europe so strong.
It is for that reason that I recommend to you that you give some thought to expanding this portfolio and including within it not only multilingualism, but also the protection of minorities in general. That would make it all the clearer what you intend to achieve by it, and then – or so I could well imagine – you could get even wider support for this proposal in this House.
Speaking in general terms, I would have been glad if the Presidency of the Council had been present to take note of the Commission’s strategic work programme, for many, many things that the President of the Commission has come here with his Commissioners to put before us can be realised only if the men and women in the individual governments of the EU, whom the Council represents, put into effect those things that the Commission proposes and we enact. Their absence from this debate is symptomatic of their attitude towards this European Union.
Nevertheless, though, one gets, on reading it, the feeling of having been here before, of having read it already. Where, though, I asked myself, and so I had a look in my archives and dug out the legislative and working programme for 2006. Aha, I knew it: I really had read all this before!
I then came to the conclusion that this is not an argument against the 2007 programme; on the contrary, indeed, it is actually evidence of continuity in the ideas that the Commission is putting forward to us today, and there is nothing wrong with that; it is not a bad thing, for the goals set out in the working programme are good ones. Yes, indeed, climate change is the number one challenge; that energy policy must be central in the coming year is not a matter of doubt.
Since all those who hold power under you are present here, Mr President of the Commission, let me tell you and them, speaking as a father, that the safety of children’s toys is indeed important, and vitally so. Doing away with roaming charges will be a tremendous thing; as one who uses the phone a lot, I am behind you all the way on that. Reducing bureaucracy is vitally important if we are to make the EU more efficient. All these things are important, and I could turn to any and every one of your Commissioners and tell them: ‘your portfolio is the most important of all!’
Nevertheless, I ask myself the question as to why, when we are doing all these good, right and important things, we are not getting through to people. Why is it, then, that, despite all these things, people are not enthusiastic about the European project? I think I have found the explanation for that. For years on end, the radical free-marketeers, not least in the Commission, have been telling us that all that is needed is to deregulate, to do away with the rules and regulations, and leave it to the market to sort everything out. They have been telling us that the internal market will create the economic dynamism that we need in order to create jobs, to guarantee living wages on which people can live securely, but reality is something else! Yes, go on, applaud!
It is you radical free-marketeers who, with the deregulation of the European internal market, have enabled us to achieve the highest unemployment figures that Europe has ever seen; that is what the reality of this internal market has turned out to be.
That, Mr President of the Commission, is why something you have said, in this debate, something you have said for the first time in a long time, may well be more important than the work programme as a whole, and the important statement that you made was that, without solidarity, without social responsibility, the internal market will not come to be. If that is the line that the Commission is taking, if that is the spirit motivating your working programme, then you have our backing.
Mr Poettering’s spontaneous applause shows that he is both Christian and social, and I think your statement is one of the most important that you have made to this House for a long time, and it is for that reason that the approach you have set out today is a good one."@en1
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"(Interruption: ‘CDU, not CSU!’)"1
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