Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-09-04-Speech-2-012"
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"en.20070904.3.2-012"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the PSE Group has just adopted an important contribution on revision of the internal market. I shall be pleased to let Commissioner McCreevy have a copy later on.
We see the internal market as the greatest economic achievement of the Union, together with the euro, but, unlike the Commissioner, we are not market fanatics. The market has been the natural place for trade between human beings since they moved on from the gatherer stage. The market is useful, it even has its virtues, but it is not in itself a model for society.
The market economy is fine, as long as we do not end up with a society where everything is for sale, where human needs like education, culture, social welfare and health are entirely dependent on market forces. What we are advocating is a social market economy in which the necessary competition is still subject to rules, consumers are protected and efficient public services make up for the shortcomings of the market.
In the United States, the health sector accounts for over 15% of GDP, twice the European average, but 44 million American workers do not have health insurance. To avoid two-speed healthcare in Europe, we would like to see European support for health services.
We urge the Commission finally to comply with the request by the European Councils in Nice, Laeken and Barcelona and to put forward proposals for a Community framework allowing national, regional and local authorities to offer efficient public services with full legal certainty. We ask the Commission to work to achieve a high level of social protection within the internal market. Any legislation aimed at completing the single market should be coupled with a study of its impact on employment in the sector concerned. We want safeguard clauses like the Monti clause, protecting the right to strike and collective agreements.
In our view, maintaining a high degree of social protection requires ambitious directives on working hours and temporary work arrangements. Social protection is not incompatible with economic efficiency. Indeed it is the States with the best-organised social dialogue, such as the Scandinavian countries, Germany, the Netherlands and a few others, that have the most successful economies in the European Union.
In short, the PSE Group is in favour of competition that stimulates, cooperation that strengthens and solidarity that unites. I have just quoted Jacques Delors. I shall leave it to my colleague, Evelyne Gebhardt, to comment on the Toubon report, which I think I can say is generally positive."@en1
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