Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-03-09-Speech-2-049"
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"Mr President, Mrs Schaldemose has just highlighted the quality of this debate, particularly on the specific point of the consumer agency which, unless I am mistaken, already exists in Canada, and Mr Dalli will tell us how things stand today. I agree with this assessment of the quality of the debate and the quality of all the constructive, critical speeches and proposals that have been made on the implementation and evaluation, on the monitoring of these 1 500 – I repeat, for all those listening to us – 1 500 directives or texts which regulate this large European market. I might add that I am not sure whether I prefer to talk about the large European market rather than the single market, since it would be clearer for citizens and consumers.
With regard to SOLVIT, to end with a few brief comments, I support the idea – the good idea – that someone mentioned of creating a SOLVIT.EU website. It will disseminate information or refer the user to national sites. We will work very quickly on this SOLVIT.EU site with my departments in conjunction with another project relating to the Your Europe site. As Mr Kelly and you said, though, the word SOLVIT is at least a clear and simple one, and I agree with this positive assessment.
SOLVIT is working well, but it could work better. There are too many citizens and businesses that are still unaware of their rights and the ways in which they can assert them, and I uphold Mrs Werthmann’s remark calling for greater transparency. I believe, too, that a number of you, Mrs Vergnaud, Mr Rossi, Mrs Stihler, Mrs Rapti, have referred to the inadequacy of the resources made available to SOLVIT, not only in France, by the way, even though I clearly heard what you said. This is not a French minister addressing you, even though I am a former French minister, and please believe that I will look very closely at what happens in that country – of which I am still a citizen – so that it functions properly, just as I shall do in all the other countries.
Indeed, we require the appropriate, necessary resources, and I will check that during each of my in-situ visits. Once again, these tools are necessary in order to check properly how the internal market is functioning; this market, I say in turn, is not complete. We must relaunch it and develop it further – several people have mentioned this, Mr Stolojan, Mrs Gebhardt, Mr Karas, Mr Kožušník – from the cross-border perspective or even within each country. We must remove the barriers, and that is why, Mr Harbour, it is important to determine where the missing links are, which is something that is perhaps not emphasised enough, but which is nevertheless laid down in the 2020 strategy. I will endeavour to do this with my 12 or 15 colleagues in the College who are responsible, one way or another, for applying the directives on the internal market.
Mr President, I will conclude by mentioning three specific points. Yes to close cooperation – it was Mr Busuttil who raised this matter – between SOLVIT, the Ombudsman and the work of the Committee on Petitions. This is the approach that I shall be taking.
I thank Mrs Rühle and the other members of the Committee on Budgets for their willingness to defend SOLVIT’s budget. I support Mrs Gruny’s idea of organising consultations and seminars. We already have one or two of these a year – but I will check that this is enough – between all agents in the Member States, sometimes even in the regions, who are in charge of the SOLVIT project.
Finally, with regard to the matter criticised by several members of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, namely the internal market test, without dramatising this matter, I would remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that any legislative proposal must respect the treaty. This is what the rapporteur means; in other words, it must undergo a test of compatibility with the principles of the internal market. That is one thing, and I am also going to keep an eye on a number of social, environmental and economic criteria, since I am committed to all laws being evaluated in advance.
These are the obligations required upstream and downstream of any legislation if we are to try to construct the finest body of legislation to serve the citizens, consumers and businesses working and living on European territory.
Under the supervision of the Chair, Mr Harbour, who heard me say this in the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, and in response to Mr Triantaphyllides’s speech, I would like to remind you of the principle behind the action I will be taking within the Commission over the next five years.
Ladies and gentlemen, my aim, day after day, law after law, is to ensure that the European market once again serves the men and women who live on our continent. I have a second aim, and that is to ensure that the markets – since I am also responsible for regulation and supervision – to ensure that the financial markets, about which much has been said over the last few months, once again serve the real economy, that they serve men and women.
I want citizens, consumers and small businesses to take ownership of this market again. This is what will guide the action that I shall have the honour of directing in the College. It is a matter of trust, to adopt the word used just now by Mr Rochefort and Mrs Rühle, of mutual trust. This is why I thank Mrs Thun Und Hohenstein once more for her high quality report on the scoreboard published by the European Commission.
There are many ideas, in this report and in all I have heard, that are worth adopting or examining. Mr Bielan has supported the idea of indicators on the application of the rules included in Mrs Thun Und Hohenstein’s report. Mrs Gebhardt has also mentioned the economic and social assessment of the directives and the impact studies. Perhaps at this stage, I might respond to the constructive criticism of Mr Harbour concerning the 2020 strategy. Furthermore, I also heard Mrs Handzlik say that we were not talking enough about the internal market.
Frankly, when you actually read the 2020 strategy that the Commission published last week, the internal market is at the heart of this approach and it is everywhere: intelligent growth with patents and other tools; green growth with proper use of procurement contracts; and inclusive, equitable and fair growth. The internal market is everywhere – it must be everywhere – but, Mr Harbour, the 2020 text is not designed to talk about everything. For example, it does not talk about foreign policy and defence policy, nor does it aim to relieve the Commission of its task, which is to properly enforce, supervise and monitor the correct implementation of all the texts. Please believe that I do not feel relieved of the need to check and take action, sometimes even through infringement proceedings, to ensure the proper application of the internal market. However, I will always, I repeat, prioritise agreement, trust and explanation over constraint.
There are other good ideas in Mrs Thun Und Hohenstein’s report: the partnership with Member States and the creation of this internal market forum, which I support. Incidentally, perhaps we could pull together other initiatives today concerning some of the same matters we are covering with Mr Dalli, such as the implementation or highlighting and promotion of the SOLVIT network, and get things done at the same time.
I have talked about attaching as much importance to the monitoring effect as to the announcement effect. This is my way of doing politics and, from that point of view, I believe that the scoreboard, the evaluation, must enable us not only to make a quantitative evaluation – how many directives are transposed – but also a qualitative one.
I believe Mr Hoang Ngoc mentioned, and very clearly too, the quality of the implementation of the laws, the quality of transposition and, as you said, the quality of the laws themselves, which, for a legislator or a commissioner, is a good exercise in clarity. At any rate, all these ideas are worthwhile, as Mr Schwab and Mrs Roithová stated just now."@en1
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