Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-17-Speech-1-057"
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".
Mr President, I should like to thank the Members of Parliament for their commitment and for the passion with which they themselves, all this time, have supported efforts which really do function as a steam engine to promote the issues of people with disabilities. Allow me too, however, to express my disappointment at some sort of criticism which was voiced. I imagine that, not only the Members of the European Parliament, but also the Commissioners sometimes have the right to express such disappointment. I shall explain what I mean at once.
I have repeatedly supported the need for there to be a horizontal directive. And I have explained the reasons. I shall certainly come back to why this could not be proposed at this specific moment in time. However, I want us to focus on what has happened, on all the policies developed, all the fights fought, because I want to assure you, Mr Pronk, that I at least believe that I have shown considerable courage – as much as my position allows – in order to put forward the directives proposed. They were not easy, I can assure you. When I submitted them to the Commission, there were public administrators who bet their positions that they would never get through the Commission. They passed the required majority of 12 votes. When they went to the Council, there were public statements that there was not one chance in a hundred that these directives would get through. Yet the directives got through in record time. The directives in question – and to be more specific the workplace directive – are now a huge wager which we, the European institutions, have against the national administrations. I have been in contact for the last two years with all the ministers in all the Member States. I have set up a team of experts, which has recorded the difficulties in applying these directives in each Member State. These difficulties are not simply a question of political will. It is not that the ministers or some governments are refusing to apply something which they agreed on three years ago. There are constitutional problems, there are political problems, there are legal and economic problems, because this is the first time we have had this sort of directive at European level and the majority of Member States did not have the basic experience needed to apply or, more to the point, adopt it within their legislative framework.
So here we are, one month before the adoption of the legislation, which means, Mr Bouwman, that I do not have any facility to take the Member States to court. Wait until the end of December and then you can check if the Commission is doing its job. One month before the deadline and we only have two countries with the legislation. We are not talking about application. We are talking about adopting the legislation. There are many countries which have not yet drafted a bill. That is because there are huge problems in their parliaments. So that is the situation today.
The objective, the political objective, must be for us to focus on the implementation of what we agreed on. I would ask the honourable Members, as I have repeatedly asked the Disabled People's Movement, to make this their top priority in their countries. Governments need to be criticised for failing to honour their obligations. There needs to be a public debate as to why we are not applying European legislation. A number of Members said that the European Union is all about grand speeches, nice resolutions, communications and conferences. I have spoken about legislation. I shall tell you what we have done in practice for mainstreaming over the last two years.
With the Commissioner for competition, Mr Monti, we are making exceptions for the first time from the state aid rules and allowing subsidies for workers with disabilities. For the first time, we are making an exception with Mr Bolkestein, the Commissioner for the internal market, for VAT on tools used by people with disabilities. For the first time, Mrs de Palacio is submitting legislation on access for people with disabilities to transport, and with Mr Liikanen we are organising the whole e-accessibility programme giving people with disabilities access to the electronic sector. And we can take it for granted that these often involve real acrobatics at the level of subsidiarity.
When we come to the content of the proposed directive, I should like to remind you of the areas apart from employment. They are education, health and welfare, the social systems and benefits, taxation and, as Mr Mantovani mentioned, the question of political participation. As I said, honourable Members, I have talked to all the ministers about these matters, so that we can see how to prepare the next step. I leave it to you to assess the reactions of the ministers for education to interventions by European legislation in education and of the ministers for health and welfare to interventions by European legislation in health and welfare and social systems. I consider the question of taxation far easier and I consider the question of European legislation on the participation of people with disabilities in the political systems of the Member States impossible.
The reason I am referring to individual policies is to show how difficult the second step is. By which I mean a directive which relates to anything apart from employment, when we are totally unable to apply the first legislative act.
Mr Pronk criticised me because I demonstrated courage and because, with so many clashes, I proposed article 13 on equality of the sexes and because I have arguments for one and not for the other. I shall explain to you at once, Mr Pronk. Legislation on sexual equality in the workplace goes back thirty years. For thirty years now we have been passing European legislation, implementing, improving, reverting and cooperating and now we are completely reforming, recasting the legislation on sexual equality so that we can take the second step. With the second step, I think every Member of the European Parliament has been following not the clash, but the furious attack at the mere announcement of the proposal. It is not a question of courage here. I think that for a politician to put forward clashing issues also has its positive side. Knowing the extent to which what you propose is implemented is a matter of responsibility. I can assure you that I had no problem whatsoever with being the good Commissioner, compared to all the other bad Commissioners who rejected the directive in question.
I took a little longer, but after one year of the ‘Year of People with Disabilities’ and after four years with policy for people with disabilities firmly on the European agenda, with specific achievements and not just words, with legislation and with policies which are changing the daily life of European citizens, I really do think that what Mrs Lynne said about it being a failure if there is no proposal for a directive was truly unfair. I really cannot accept that statement."@en1
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