Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-05-04-Speech-1-133"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20090504.17.1-133"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Ladies and gentlemen, this was a very interesting debate for me. I would like to respond briefly to some of the initiatives. Firstly, I would like to say something that has not been mentioned here, and which must be stated quite frankly. Is it not, by chance, true that Europe has the highest levels of employee protection in the world? I believe this is the case, so any talk about efforts aimed at dismantling this kind of protection, or returning to the 19
century is simply not true. We are only trying to adapt it to the current economy and the global economic situation. We are not living in the 20
century. This is the 21
century, and we work
I would not like to specify the hours
but we work all the time. Can you see this mobile phone, can you see these computers? Each of us receives e-mail messages every day and it is normal to receive them 24 hours a day. At the same time nobody ever calculates how many hours he or she really works. So the attempt being made here – we are talking about some kind of flexibility –is merely an attempt by Europe as whole to adjust to global competition.
You were right, Mr Nassauer, when you said we should agree on the issues, for example the question of on-call time. I would like to say that in this respect the Council has gone quite a long way to meet Parliament and has agreed that on-call time would be regarded as work time, contrary to the common position, which was quite different. The Council even proposed to Parliament that this directive should regulate the issue of on-call time only and leave the issue of the opt-out for another time, but Parliament did not respond to this. Mr Figueredo said that the Council’s proposals have undermined the position of working people, but I would like to reiterate a basic point. The Council proposed reducing the number of hours when using opt-out from 78 to 60 or 65, but Mr Cercas rejected that. The Council proposed restrictions both on monitoring and on the introduction of opt-outs. The Council agreed to this but it was still not passed. Mr Andersson is perhaps confused when he says that the Council was unwilling to accept the Commission’s compromise proposals. On the contrary, it was the Council
at its COREPER session
that approved those proposals. So the compromise proposed by the Commission was accepted by the Council, but not by Parliament.
I would also like to add that I do not know who talks to which members of the public in the EU. We also talk to members of the public in the EU, but they tell us they want more freedom, they do not want anyone to impose new obligations on them and they do not want politicians to keep interfering in their personal lives. We are now coming up to the 20
anniversary of the Velvet Revolution
the anniversary of the end of communism in Europe
and people want to celebrate that occasion by actually defending their freedom. They do not want more and more regulations and obligations imposed on them.
Mr Hughes, I believe I indicated quite clearly in my speech the points on which the Council was prepared to compromise, so it is quite wrong to say the Council did not move an inch. I would like to add, since the rapporteur voiced hopes of government changes in Europe, that I can hardly imagine
if such a change were to take place in Great Britain
that a Conservative government would have different views to those of Prime Minister Brown’s government.
I would like to say in conclusion only that we are extremely disappointed not to have reached an agreement, but if you keep on refusing to see the reality of everyday life, which is that 15 of the 27 Member States are using the opt-out and that there are currently not enough workers in many professions to do the job, especially in the new Member States, then the opt-out simply has to continue being the reality of the day. Let us return to this issue in 10 years, when the situation in the Member States may be quite different. Let us create the conditions for Member States not to have to use the opt-out, and then we might be surprised at how quickly we reach a compromise."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
"th"1
|
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples