Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-06-18-Speech-3-257"
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"en.20080618.23.3-257"2
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"Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, we are opening today’s debate on the basis of a communication that is in fact a contingency note from the Commission that has been converted into a communication as a result of the turmoil in public opinion created by the reality of situation that Europeans have to live through day after day.
The G8 raised the question of speculation in the oil markets. We know only too well the true situation that we are currently faced with, if we really want to get to the bottom of it, and Claude Turmes touched on this. The oil crisis that we are debating and that is causing such distress to our citizens is one of the elements, one of the signs of the second age of globalisation that we have now entered, an age in which the global imbalances that are now upon us, and have left us powerless, have upset the system, and the first manifestation of this was the financial crisis in the United States, which spread at remarkable speed to our own markets and went on to disrupt the speculative bubble, thereby ravaging the property markets and then moving on to the commodities market, impacting in particular on oil prices and on food prices too. The existing balance between supply and demand in this specific market then did the rest.
Faced with this situation the European Union quite correctly anticipated events last year by drawing up a strategy that I would describe as the four-20 strategy for 2020: 20% less energy consumption, 20% more energy efficiency and 20% more renewables.
However, as always we find the same shortcomings just beneath the surface. In setting up the single market we forget that if such an internal market is to be acceptable it also has to have a social dimension. In wanting to create a single European market for goods and services we forget that perhaps we should take account of the social realities in the Member States, and when we seek to provide the European Union with a proper long-term strategy for energy we forget that this will come at a transition cost, to use the language of the economists, and that when asked what category of consumer will be most affected we can reply that it will be those from the less well-off sections of the community, those who are hit hardest by the increase in fuel prices.
There are several categories that are frequently mentioned today, those professions that are the most exposed in terms of their everyday working life, such as the fishermen and the road hauliers, but behind them there are also all those low-income households who are the first to suffer as far as their daily budget is concerned because for these families housing costs and transport costs are immediately affected by the increase in fuel charges, and when seen in proportion this affects them far more than it does the pockets of the speculators who are raking in the income from the increased oil prices."@en1
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