Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-07-10-Speech-2-037"

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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it has been said on many occasions in this House that what is happening now, what we are debating now, is inevitable, but consumers should have no fear. The provision of service will improve while prices fall. I do not intend to mince my words when I say that we all know that there are no such guarantees. We know this from experience, for example in Sweden and the UK. Certainly within smaller postal markets, the replacement of the state monopoly will lead to a private monopoly, and we all know that this means that there are no guarantees of the improved provision of service or price cuts. Quite frankly, though, what is closest to my heart is the position, the future, of the employees who currently work in the postal sector. I am expressing this sentiment based on experience, for example in the already liberalised section of the Dutch postal market, where we notice that many permanent jobs have changed into uncertain part-time jobs. We have to be honest with the citizens of Europe in that area too. By definition, things do not improve following liberalisation. I am also stating this on the strength of my own, personal experience. My father worked in the postal sector for 40 years, as did my uncles and cousins. These were jobs to be proud of, of which many people were proud, in fact. I know that this world of yesteryear, the world of old certainties, will not come back. It is not out of nostalgia or misplaced romanticism that I would urge us to go back to that era, but it does leave me with, how shall I put it, an uncomfortable feeling about the uncertain future of many people who currently work in the postal sector, who are proud of this, or people who are proud of their postmen. It is also casting much doubt over the question whether this is now the message which we as the European Parliament should send out. Fine promises to the consumers, which we know we will be unable to keep. Or announcements of far-reaching changes for the employees, the impact of which we know can be enormous. This is not my idea of a social Europe."@en1

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