Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-12-Speech-3-034"
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"en.20050112.3.3-034"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, you recently stated, Mr Juncker, and indeed you repeated just now, that competitiveness will be neither the Holy Grail nor the be all and end all as far as you are concerned, in particular with regard to the mid-term review of the Lisbon strategy.
You noted that social goals and sustainable development goals should not be placed in opposition to goals relating to competitiveness. My group welcomes this statement, as we believe the opposite to be true, namely that promotion of the European model is a major driving force behind competitiveness on our continent. In fact, we believe that what is needed is a Europe of excellence which attaches priority to investment in research, innovation, employee training, the quality of infrastructures, trans-European networks, public services, the quality of work and social relations. We agree with you on this issue, and we sometimes detected a slight difference of approach to that adopted by the President of the Commission. We hope that he will be equally clear in his statements, especially with regard to social issues.
Yet the good intentions you have professed to hold will be put to a number of tests. I should like to mention three such tests, the first of which is the European budget. We share your view that this debate must not be allowed to get bogged down and that it must progress rapidly. You intend to act as a motivating and intermediary force, as well as one that accelerates the process, but we do not want the process of reaching a compromise on the Financial Perspectives to be accelerated if this would mean sacrificing a budget that meets the European Union’s needs. We agree with Mr Barroso on this issue; we need a budget that enables us to guarantee cohesion, solidarity, investment in the future and in research and investment in the trans-European networks. The process should not be accelerated at the expense of the final outcome.
The second test will be the directive on services of general interest, which has already been mentioned today by a number of speakers, in particular Mr Turmes. I believe that you yourself are aware of a risk that is a cause of great concern to us, namely the extended scope of this directive, which poses a threat to a large number of services of general interest. We are also concerned by the country of origin principle, which poses a threat to the right to work in multiple countries; I am thinking in particular of the application of collective bargaining agreements.
The third test relates more generally to the European social agenda. We would particularly like to see a clear commitment on your part in relation to other Council members regarding a review of the Directive on Working Time and a removal of the opt-out clause, and, finally, regarding a proposed review of the Directive on European Works Councils."@en1
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