Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-02-13-Speech-2-113"
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"en.20070213.16.2-113"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Wallström has remarked that the Spring Summit will have to do a good job of preparing for the Berlin meeting, which is to be held a few days later, and, whilst I can agree with that, I can do so only subject to two conditions, the first being that it would be necessary for there to be very in-depth discussion of the Berlin statement at the Spring Summit, yet, instead, even the dogs in the street know that a thorough debate on the possible content of the statement carries the inherent risk of differences of opinion becoming manifest. Is there, then, to be no public debate, no debate among the Heads of State? If that is the case, then I wonder who is meant to be working on the Berlin Declaration, so important a statement that the EU is to carry it with it into its future.
Secondly, there is a need for more questions to be put on the agenda for the Summit, one, for example, being that of how a consistent fight against poverty, unemployment and social exclusion can be waged in tandem with an effective fight against global warming. What does that mean, in particular in terms of an employment-intensive and forward-looking transformation of energy and transport, and what would need to happen in order for a really sustainable solution to work-related, social, environmental and global problems to be set in motion?
The fact is, though, that these questions are not being asked. We are talking about better regulation and about energy and climate change, but not in any way about the now long overdue beginning of a socio-environmental reconstruction that really would counteract the social division and climate-related catastrophe about the latter of which everyone is currently talking. We saw only a few days ago just how difficult the German Presidency of the Council is finding this, and Mrs Harms has mentioned it already. That ‘better regulation’ means, above all, more opening up to the market, is something that Mr Barroso made unmistakeably plain last week, as did the Commission with its communication on the implementation of the renewed strategy for growth and employment. It is the opening up of the market that is supposed to benefit both enterprises and consumers, but more of it means more competition, consequently always benefiting the strong and with the weak being always doomed to lose out. The opening up of markets does not go together with the sort of structural change that we want and about which we always talk, although I have to say that the question is always to do with who wants what at what point in time.
On 1 February, Mr Solana, addressing the conference of the European Defence Agency – an entity whose creation pre-empts the entry into force of a European Constitution – called for planning and a deliberate demand-led policy for the armaments industry. I do not see that as being in any way compatible with the purposes of a summit at which the question should be put as to what can be done to create jobs on a sustainable basis, to combat climate change on a sustainable basis, and – this too on a sustainable basis – to give the citizens of the European Union working and living conditions of equally high quality."@en1
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