Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2013-05-21-Speech-2-017-000"
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"en.20130521.5.2-017-000"2
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"Mr President, tomorrow’s European Council has a very worthy agenda and I welcome the fact that, for once, our leaders are seeking to tackle concrete issues like tax evasion and energy prices, in contrast to the Commission who are wasting valuable resources on such causes as banning reusable olive oil bottles. Rather than tackling a double dip recession, Mr Barroso seems to be worried about double-dipped bread.
Presidents, you cannot grow an economy with expensive energy. Tomorrow’s summit needs to show people that the EU can be about finding solutions to their problems and not just about grand plans for federal union. We look forward to a change and to some concrete results.
While the summit has a worthy agenda, we need, of course, some concrete results. On taxation issues, nobody can blame companies for wanting to look after shareholder capital by minimising their tax bill in a legal manner. However, Tax Research UK estimates that EU governments are losing about a trillion euros each year through tax fraud. At a time when finances are tight and taxpayers are squeezed, it is only right that we crack down on those who pursue illegal means to avoid making any contribution to public coffers and who put smaller competitors at a disadvantage. So I welcome David Cameron’s making this a priority for the UK’s G8 Presidency.
Tackling tax evasion demands a globally-coordinated approach to increase transparency and reporting and agree new standards for information exchange, and I hope that the leaders make more progress tomorrow than the Finance Ministers made last week. Conversely, of course, Member States could do more to help struggling businesses: by making tax codes simpler and making our rates more competitive and thus making it simpler for businesses to give money to the government, instead of indulging in complicated, difficult and time-consuming processes for hiding their money offshore.
However, we should not confuse cooperation on tax evasion with acceptance that the EU should interfere in taxation matters and seek to harmonise. It is very frustrating for us that the Parliament reports being voted on today blur this line by calling for a more common tax base, which is a prelude to harmonisation. Such matters are the prerogative of national governments, and we should keep our hands off. Ultimately, if countries such as France want to pursue an ideological drive towards higher taxation, that should be their choice. All I ask is that, in the interests of energy efficiency, maybe the last businessman to leave France will turn the lights off.
Which brings me to the other topic of the summit, namely energy, because unless we produce a clear energy policy, lights will start to go out right across the EU – and let us not underestimate the consequences if we fail to grasp the growing problem of high energy prices. For example, the Federation of German Industries (BDI) predicts that the cost of electricity for German industrial users will be EUR 110 per megawatt hour by 2020; in the US it is EUR 54 – less than half that total. It is a bit like asking our companies to compete with one hand tied behind their backs. At the same time, of course, we are condemning people on low incomes to freezing-cold homes.
There is no easy solution, but I believe the right place to start is with a thorough trawl through all EU policies, from climate policies, such as the Emissions Trading System, right through the financial services legislation. If any of those policies have an inadvertent impact on energy prices or if they prevent major infrastructure investment, we should repeal them or reform them, because a single market in energy will be created only with enormous amounts of private sector capital for infrastructure, and that capital is currently not forthcoming.
Secondly, I agree with Markus Beyer from Business Europe, who said recently that Europe does not have an energy policy: it has only a climate policy. Tomorrow’s summit needs to correct that. We need both policies, and they need to be complementary rather than contradictory, which they are at the moment because too often our climate policies have pursued arbitrary targets and de-industrialisation. This serves only to destroy jobs and to relocate energy-intensive industries to countries with poor or no environmental standards, which is neither good for the environment nor good for our economies and jobs.
Yet, whilst we seek to create a stronger energy policy, we must also avoid the EU’s tendency towards a one-size-fits-all approach. After all, solar panels may be a good option in Spain or Greece, but I have to say they are completely useless in the north of England, in my constituency, where the sun shines for about half an hour a year. Instead, we should preserve the flexibility to provide for what works in each country, whether that be micro-generation, renewables, nuclear power or shale gas.
A sure way to make the lights go out in Europe would be to follow the advice from Mr Cohn-Bendit and close off all our avenues of energy production apart from wind and solar. We could probably power a small town from the hot air generated by Mr Cohn-Bendit in this Chamber but that is not going to give us a proper energy policy."@en1
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