Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-05-07-Speech-3-104"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20080507.13.3-104"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like first to thank you very much for the broad support this debate has shown for the transatlantic economic cooperation project and reemphasise that this project can be successful only if all institutions are involved. The Council has its role to play, Parliament has its role, and the Commission is making an effort to play its part too.
I would like to disagree with and reassure those who expressed the concern that this is a type of transatlantic protectionism or that the two largest and most powerful economic regions in the world are walling themselves in. Transatlantic economic cooperation is not directed against anybody. It is very interesting to know that the economic regions already mentioned in this debate are already showing great interest in this work and have already asked, more or less outright, whether we could imagine doing something similar with other entities.
My answer is always the same: we would like to wait and see whether the model that we have created here actually works, because we are still in the early stages. I would like to try again to show that there are a variety of dimensions here. The actual core business is eliminating trade barriers. It is just as Mr Harbour said: these are trade barriers. When you look at it closely, it is incomprehensible, unbelievable, that we have been carrying on like this for so many years. He is absolutely right. It is because the bureaucrats cannot agree. What we are doing here is prodding the bureaucrats into action, forcing them to speak to each other, setting terms of reference for them.
Madam President, let me add an aside here. Although I have been in this business for a long time, I learnt something new by being involved in this. I always thought that if a political process in the United States was controlled by the White House, all it took was the touch of a button and the entire administration and the executive did what the President wanted. Even in the United States, that is not the case. Europe is not alone in having problems activating its bureaucracy – the Americans have the same problem. That, then, is our core task. We are talking here about things that free the economy on both sides from many many billions of euros of unnecessary expenses, money that could be invested, or used to create jobs and promote clever innovations. That is the key task.
The second dimension involves looking much farther ahead to consider whether we could perhaps manage to work with common standards. For example, the US co-chairman and I agreed that it does not make sense for the United States and Europe to develop standards and compete against each other with these standards in third markets. The attempt to do a lot more together and to prevent problems in future regulations is one reason why we are holding close talks about nanotechnology, and why we are discussing standards for biofuels. We are doing all this so that it does not have to be repeated in the future, so that things will not grow apart.
I also wish to share my personal vision. I think that, given the very different philosophies on both sides of the Atlantic, for example about how to achieve product safety, we can ultimately achieve the goal only if we are prepared to recognise each other’s philosophies and regulatory methods, if, for example, we recognise that the Americans are just as reluctant to poison their citizens as we are, and if the Americans admit that we are just as reluctant to expose our citizens to danger from electrical appliances as they are. Thus there is a basic foundation of mutual recognition of sensible regulations.
Now the third dimension. This is the area that this afternoon’s discussion concentrated on almost exclusively – the big, far-reaching issues, sometimes involving global politics, that have been mentioned here. I agree with Erika Mann and would like to ask you not to overload the Council, apart from the fact that we have a framework agreement that prescribes what topics we can tackle and what we cannot. Many topics were mentioned that were definitely not provided for in the framework agreement and for which there are other forums. Nevertheless, experience has already shown that practical cooperation does make it necessary to debate the big strategic issues with each other, such as the future of the world trade system, the issue of protectionism, how to deal with investments from state funds, the issue of food and energy prices and that of the potential need to regulate financial services. That is exactly what we are doing. We have found a way of responding very quickly and very flexibly. Therefore, I cannot exclude that over the long term, we may discuss topics that go beyond what was actually set out in the framework agreement.
Let me repeat: this debate has encouraged me to keep going along the well-worn path and to make sure that this time we will be successful. Together, we have enormous potential, which we have not even begun to make the most of. When we eliminate the barriers that prevent us tapping our full economic potential, then we can do a great deal more to achieve our political, social and ecological goals. That is what it is all about."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples