Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-01-13-Speech-2-270"
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"en.20090113.27.2-270"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, worldwide there are currently 13 EU missions through which we are helping to bring peace and stability. Nine missions have already ended. In many of these operations, armed forces, often including police officers, from our Member States enter difficult environments. At the same time, we all know that there are still many more trouble spots and that demand for European intervention in international politics is more likely to increase than decrease, and, unfortunately, we also know that we Europeans are often not in a position to carry out our missions in the way that we really ought to, with optimum equipment and in an interoperable and strategically redeployable manner. We must achieve this, as we owe this to our soldiers and police officers involved in operations throughout the world. This goal is a long way off, however.
One of the reasons for this is our fragmented defence equipment market. Our 27 Member States indulge in 89 different, sometimes even duplicated, research programmes. The US has only 29. There is far too little cooperation between the Member States in connection with product development. So-called traditional suppliers are preferred over non-traditional, but perhaps better suppliers and that is what we want to change.
Goods and services to the value of around EUR 91 billion are acquired each year on the European defence equipment market. Of this, only 13% is, on average, put out to tender Europe-wide. The sorry country bringing up the rear in this case, I might add, is Germany with only around 2%. The bottom line is that the internal market for defence-related products is not working. Many important innovations in this high-tech industry cannot be utilised, our armed forces do not get the best equipment and taxpayers’ money is wasted. As a result, highly developed defence-related products are becoming increasingly expensive, while the defence budget remains the same or is even getting smaller. In this situation, it is clear what it is all about. It is not about greater arms expenditure, but about spending the existing money more wisely. That is what we need to do. We owe it to our taxpayers.
Therefore, in a report in 2005 this Parliament called on the Commission to submit a directive for this sector. It has done so, in agreement with both Parliament and the Council. It was important for us, and also for me as rapporteur, that President Sarkozy expressly mentioned the European defence equipment market in his speech about the priorities of the French Presidency. With that it was clear that Parliament, the Council and the Commission would work together on this in a united effort. The agreement at first reading is a result of this common political will. Tomorrow, we will – hopefully together – lay the foundation for a new European legal framework, which will ensure a genuine opening of the market and greater transparency and competition with regard to procurement.
We must also view this directive in context. In December, we successfully adopted the Directive on the transfer of defence-related products within the Community. The directive before us today is the second important building block in the European defence equipment package. Although the two directives function independently in theory, in practice they need one another. This is another reason why the completion tomorrow of our work on the defence equipment package is so important. It will not bring a revolution in the market overnight, that is clear, but it is an important step in the right direction and it is able to move European security and defence policy substantially further forward.
I would like to offer my sincere thanks to my colleagues, the shadow rapporteurs Charlotte Cederschiöld, Barbara Weiler and Gisela Kallenbach for their ever fair, sometimes critical, but always constructive cooperation. I would also like to thank the Council and the Commission. Everyone involved showed a wonderful mixture of political will, professionalism and a willingness to compromise.
We all owe it to our citizens to make constructive policy for Europe together. I hope that we will fulfil this obligation tomorrow for our sphere of competence with the adoption of this package. Incidentally, we should be having this debate in Brussels and not in Strasbourg. Thank you."@en1
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