Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-24-Speech-2-438"
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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you first of all for the unity in this House and for your broad support for the Commission’s policy. I believe that it is very important and also a very important signal to the workers in the car industry who are at the centre of this debate. This is only right and proper.
Some Members, including Mrs Harms, Mr Hökmark and others, have looked at the question of the link between innovation and competitiveness. Once again I would like to emphasise very clearly that without this link with innovation the European car industry will not be competitive in the long term. The goal of our policy is to ensure that the European car of the future is the most innovative, in other words, the cleanest, most energy-efficient and safest, in the world. I have confidence that our manufacturers, our technical specialists and our engineers can achieve this. We have the potential to achieve this.
I would like to move on to a second subject, in other words, financing in the crisis. The banks are not providing funds. Companies are not able to obtain the loans that they need. The European Investment Bank is now our all-purpose tool. I must state quite clearly that the European Investment Bank has already reached the limits of what it is able to do. The car industry is not the only sector which we are asking the EIB to help with. What about finance for small and medium-sized enterprises? What about finance for our highly ambitious climate-protection objectives? All of this is being provided by the EIB. I know now that we will receive requests from industry which the EIB simply will not be able to respond to, because we want it to do business on a sound basis and not to create bubbles, as others have done. Therefore, the problems are likely to increase in the second half of the year and we must prepare for this to happen.
I also support everyone who has said that we need intelligent incentives to ensure that all the cars which we want to come onto the market are actually bought. I very much share Mr Groote’s opinion on CO
based vehicle tax. The Commission proposed this a long time ago and I am very sad that some Member States did not follow this proposal at the time.
Mrs De Vits spoke about the role of the trade unions and the works councils. I am very pleased to be able to inform you that the last detailed discussion which I had before coming to this session was with the Chairman of the works council of General Motors in Europe. We are in constant, regular contact and exchange all the information that we have. I must say that until now I have benefited more from this exchange of information than the Chairman of the works council. I find out more from him than he does from me. However, I hope to be able to return the favour in future. In a few days, we will be meeting with the European metal-working unions and automotive unions and, of course, the unions are the main parties involved in the round-table meetings, which I have already mentioned. Therefore, I believe that we have met all the requirements.
In the ‘catch-the-eye’ procedure there were several references to scrappage incentives. We do need to ask ourselves whether this will really help in the long term. It could also be the case that we are creating artificial demand which will lead to another collapse. Nevertheless, all the manufacturers were impressed by this idea because it will help them through the very difficult phase which they are in at the moment. It is like a supply of oxygen and it has helped significantly to ensure that there have as yet been no mass redundancies among the major manufacturers in Europe and that they have been able to retain their workforces. In this respect, I believe that it has fulfilled its purpose.
The scrappage incentive is a standard European initiative, in the sense that clear rules are in place which everyone has observed. It goes without saying that we cannot finance the incentive from the Community budget. The budget is not intended for this purpose and this would not be possible either in political or legal terms. The incentives have also had a positive cross-border impact. Mrs Roithová, your country in particular has benefited very much from the generous incentive schemes in other European Member States. There is a certain amount of European solidarity involved here, which should not be underestimated.
I have seen this debate as a call to continue to take action on this issue and to stay on the ball. I can promise you that we will do so. As far as the car industry is concerned, we have established excellent cooperation among the different parties. I hope that it will not be necessary to debate the European car industry again during the term of office of this Parliament, but if it should be necessary, the Commission is ready to do so at any time. Thank you very much."@en1
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