Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-02-Speech-2-083"
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"en.20080902.4.2-083"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by dealing with two points from the debate. Firstly, Europe is not governed by the Right, but by the Liberal Centre-Right. I must point out that we had a Social Democratic Government in my own country, and five million people were unemployed when it left office. Today we have three million unemployed, which means that two million people are back in work today. That is real social policy; that is social progress.
Secondly, as a Member of this House, I personally feel angry when we ourselves speak so badly of our European ideal. Europe is a social project today. When I think that the single market is creating millions of jobs and is giving people prosperity and good prospects and that our cohesion policy, our European Social Fund, is providing us with billions to practise solidarity on a European scale, to be a model of European solidarity, I must urge everyone, in spite of all our problems, to refrain from denigrating our own project.
I should like to devote special attention to the discrimination issue, because we are dealing with it in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. Everyone rejects discrimination. It poisons our society, and Europe must set an example in the fight against discrimination. Everyone in this House, I hope, will endorse that view.
Nevertheless, questions may be asked. Firstly, does the directive constitute a proportionate measure? The issue of the burden on small businesses has already been addressed.
Secondly, what about the implementation of the present legal provisions? An evaluation has already been made on paper, but what is the position on the ground with regard to the application of the existing directives? That question has to be asked before any new directives are created.
Thirdly, do we really have gaps in European legislation? Does Europe have sole responsibility for social policy? All Member States of the EU are democracies, and they all have structures built on the rule of law. We must therefore ask whether there is any compelling need for Europe to be nicer, kindlier and more convincing in the realm of social policy. Can we not just rely for once on subsidiarity working and the Member States managing to cope with their own tasks in these fundamental areas of activity?"@en1
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