Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-07-10-Speech-2-017"
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"en.20070710.5.2-017"2
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"Mr President, I congratulate our rapporteur, Mr Ferber, on his work on this report. It is a long time since he and I first crossed swords on postal services many years ago. In fact, I think we may even have still had the Berlin Wall at the time, which just shows you how long this has been going on.
Postal services are a highly personal and highly political issue. That is why they are different to other sectors, like telecoms and energy, because post, as I have often said in this House, is about people; it is about frontline public service. That is why it is important and generates a lot of interest.
I know in the work we have done in committee we have tried to take on board the views of other committees and political groups. And, after a lot of hard work, and I have to say a great deal of good will, we reached an agreement, which I think is a good one.
I just want to say that this particular directive is not really about liberalisation. The argument as to whether we should liberalise the post was lost many years ago. Mr Hughes is right when he says that politics is about the art of the possible. And those who are a minority – and I respect them for their views – who think that we should stay with the old ways, stay with the monopolistic sector and reserved area, well, whilst I see the merits of their argument, in the real world, that is not where we are, that is not where we are living. The vast majority of our Member States have liberalised; the vast majority of those who have not would like to and so, therefore, it is a dose of reality that is sometimes needed.
Parliament agreed to controlled liberalisation and, indeed, in its last pronouncement agreed that that should be on 1 January 2009. Yet, since then, we have had the accession of the new Member States and my group believes that that means we need to think through what we did previously with a view to a different timetable and delaying the implementation for those who need it.
But I have to say that, whilst the Commission is strong on universal service, it is weak on how to finance that universal service within its proposals.
So let us look at the key issue. How do we guarantee a universal service, and a universal service that treats all citizens equally, irrespective of where they live? That is why we support the guarantee of access points in rural and peripheral areas. How do we finance that universal service? How do we have the national plans in place to enable that to happen? How do we protect the workers and their working conditions, and how do we ensure that the new Member States are not forced into competition that they cannot sustain? That is where the timescale is important.
They are the issues we have addressed in this report and in the compromise that we reached and I hope Parliament will support that compromise tomorrow."@en1
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