Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-04-06-Speech-3-089-000"
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very grateful to every one of you for the quality of your speeches across a whole range of views. I listened with great attention to everything you had to say, the expression of your vigilance, and also, in general – and I am very conscious of this as it is something we need – the expression of your encouragement and your support for our approach.
I wish to work, Mr Schwab, towards the de-compartmentalisation needed.
Mr Løkkegard and Mr Grech also mentioned communication. Before you communicate, you have to do something and when you do something, you need to explain it in such a way that citizens grasp what has been done. That is why I attach a great deal of importance, in the entire system of the internal market, to those tools that bring Europe closer to its citizens: the Solvit system, which is starting to work well, the Internal Market Information System (IMI), points of single contact, Your Europe and the forum, which Mr Grech mentioned, to improve dialogue between all stakeholders and civil society.
In conclusion, Mr President, I should like to remind everyone of some of the beliefs that have guided what I have done throughout the mandate that was entrusted to me with your support.
Let me start with my principal belief, since we are talking about the economy and employment. Ladies and gentlemen, the rest of the world does not stand by waiting for us. It is going much faster than us in certain areas. We must not let ourselves stand by and be spectators of our own future. We, Europeans, must be the driving force behind our own future. Moreover, the main argument, the driving force impelling us to be the agents of our own future, is the Single Market. I was in China a few days ago. We are respected there because we represent a market of 500 million consumers and citizens. Let us continue to strive to pool our resources and let us strengthen our core – the Single Market.
The Single Market is the keystone, the platform of our economy. If it operates effectively, everything that we build on it in terms of private initiatives for businesses or local, national and European public and private initiatives will work better. Why, for example, are we fighting to re-launch the patents issue which has remained deadlocked for the last 30 years? The reason is that all public and private initiatives in the areas of innovation and creation have been weakened, seriously weakened, because we do not have a European patent or because our patents cost 10 times more than in the US So the platform must operate effectively. That is the nub of the issue and, once that happens, we shall be able to build more effectively a great number of initiatives on its foundations.
My second main belief is that the time has come to work towards renewed growth. Here, I should like to signal my agreement with Mrs Turunen who, just now, called for a different kind of growth. The growth that will emerge from this crisis, and here Mrs Turunen is correct, must be different from previous growth, must pay more respect to natural resources, natural spaces, which are neither free nor inexhaustible, and we shall incorporate these objectives in particular into the new code or new regulations for public procurement, as well as for taxation, which must play a role in achieving a more ecological growth.
My third belief, ladies and gentlemen, is that there cannot be sustainable economic performance without innovation or social cohesion. That is the dynamic compromise to which Mr Canfin referred and that Mr Monti had recommended, including in the area of taxation. Mr Canfin and Mr Cofferati both mentioned this subject and Mrs Toia mentioned just now a subject that will feature in the proposals for a Single Market Act, namely, the development of a sector in which I believe, that of social business.
My fourth belief, and I repeat it here, is that if we are to win the fight for competitiveness, each of our territories, no matter how weak or how distant from Brussels it may be, has a role to play. Each business is able to win its own battle, even the smallest amongst them, and we must help them do so. Finally, all our citizens, even the weakest, those who are sometimes excluded through handicaps, can win their own battles for competitiveness, providing that they receive encouragement and support.
My fifth belief is that, in relation to what is happening in the rest of the world, our ambition must, I insist, be one of being agents and not spectators. Furthermore, we must not merely be happy for Europe to be a continent of consumption. Europe must continue to be a continent of production, not only of services, but an area in which we maintain a productive base, and that is also the objective of a number of the proposals that we shall make about long-term investments.
Honourable Members, I outlined to you what my dual ambition was upon becoming Commissioner. It has not changed and will remain the same until the end of my mandate. We are going to put the financial markets, which we need, back in the service of the real economy, and not the other way around as it has been over the last 15 years. It is not the role of business to work for the markets, but of regulated financial markets, that are better governed and supervised, to be at the service of the real economy. Our aim is to place the real economy, namely the large Single Market, back at the service of growth and at the service of human progress. You should read next week – it may not be perfect and can doubtless be improved – the draft Single Market Act proposed by the European Commission in the light of your debates, and also in the light of this dual ambition: that of placing the market back at the service of the economy and of placing the economy back at the service of growth and human progress.
I should like to reiterate my thanks to your three rapporteurs, Mrs Kalniete, Mr Buşoi and Mr Correia de Campos, and to tell Mr Kožušník that he was right to emphasise the central role in this debate of Mr Harbour, because it was not a foregone conclusion that 11 committees, and I should like to thank the rapporteurs who have spoken, would be able to work together. This holistic or global approach had been recommended by Mr Grech and by Mr Monti, and, in parallel, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission under the authority of President Barroso carried out the same work. We have, with 12 other Commissioners, worked to formulate these 50 proposals and, finally next week, to identify the 12 levers for the modernisation of the Single Market and the 12 symbolic proposals for these levers.
Just now, Mr Zwiefka spoke of utopia, recalling the founding fathers. I remember something that one of these founding fathers, Mr Jean Monnet, said when the very first step towards the Single Market was taken and coal and steel were first brought together in 1950. He said: ‘I am neither pessimistic nor optimistic, I am merely determined’. I believe, ladies and gentlemen that at present – and I am repeating myself here – when you listen closely to the public and hear their anger, their concern, when you see how many of them are suffering, when you see the lack of jobs and of growth, it is time for renewed determination, particularly in the areas of the economy and growth. Moreover, Mrs Thun referred to this European determination just now. I feel that it is very important, thanks to the extremely constructive work you have done jointly with the different committees and different groups, that you are able to arrive shortly – at least I hope you are – at a vote which expresses this determination and which the Council and, for its part too, the Commission will have to take into account. In any case, this supportive work you have carried out jointly makes me feel secure in my own determination, and I have felt reassured by the success of the public debate which we held for four months on the Single Market Act, since we received, as I recall, 850 contributions, and also by the fact that the European Council itself has signalled its support for our approach.
That is how the Commission will identify the proposals for which it is committed to provide the texts over the next 12 months, and I hope that we, the Council, Parliament and the Commission, are able to implement these texts in 2011 and 2012.
Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, we, the Commission, through your legislation, produce a great deal of regulations. Those that I am currently drafting on the lessons to be learnt from the financial crisis are reactive or preventive regulations. Here, with the Single Market Act, our ambition is to construct a proactive and dynamic regulation, and to turn, as Mr Juvin and Mrs Auconie have recommended, this internal market into what it should be: a space of opportunity, much more than a space of constraints, which is the view that small and medium-sized enterprises and the citizens have of it.
Citizens are consumers, and we are going to work to guarantee the safety of the products that they consume and to lift all discriminatory barriers. Citizens are workers, and we are going to work on the recognition of professional qualifications and the respect of social rights for those who work in another country. That is what Mrs Jaakonsaari and Mrs Gebhardt have recommended. Citizens use public services. That is a concern that many of you have voiced, in particular, Mr Triantaphyllides, and, moreover, I recommend that Mrs Castex, who spoke just now, read carefully – which she no doubt has already done – my colleague, Mr Almunia’s proposal on the revision of the Monti-Kroes package. It contains, to my mind, new and open responses regarding the quality of and access to public services. In addition, citizens are savers and borrowers and I have just outlined provisions regarding a single integrated mortgage market.
Then there are, in addition to the citizens, the businesses that create the jobs. Mr Creutzmann, Mr Karas, just now, and Mrs Corazza Bildt have spoken of the need for competitiveness, particularly in the case of small and medium-sized enterprises. We shall work on more favourable accounting and fiscal conditions, on progress in innovation, patents and copyright, which Mr Manders mentioned, on access to investment and also, I believe, on public/private partnerships. I would like to thank Mrs Vergnaud for the support she has shown for our project on concessions.
We must improve the governance of the internal market. Mr Schwab said something very important just now on de-compartmentalisation and I have tried to work on this with my colleagues inside the Commission. This de-compartmentalisation applies to the assessment of the different directives.
I am currently carrying out an assessment, as you already know, country by country and service by service, on the Services Directive that Mrs Handzlik and Mrs Roithová mentioned just now, and I can see clear evidence of compartmentalisation. There is sometimes a concertina effect, for a particular worker or a particular engineer or architect, in the use of the Services Directive, the Professional Qualifications Directive and the E-commerce Directive."@en1
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