Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-04-05-Speech-2-013-000"
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"en.20110405.3.2-013-000"2
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"Mr President, President of the European Council, President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I must confess, Mr Van Rompuy, that Mr Schulz has quoted a little German song to you. The direct equivalent in French is known as ‘Tout va très bien, Madame la Marquise, il n'y a pas de problème’.
I have to say I am astonished at how things are presented here. We should not be taken for fools. Even if we like listening to you, we do read the papers now and again, so we do know what happened at this Council. Do not be telling us little stories. We know what the problems are. We are not here to waste our time.
I would like to say one thing to you and to Mr Barroso. You harp on about ‘stability, growth, employment, competitiveness’. That much is true. But do you know how that comes across to our citizens? What they see are ‘inequalities, a feeling of injustice, insecurity’. That is how it translates for them. And if the European Union does not change its ways, does not try to respond to this feeling of injustice, this feeling of inequality or the reality of inequality, the reality of insecurity, well the people will hear ‘competitiveness’ and understand it as ‘they are going to hit us again’.
That is where the real problem lies for us, because citizens will see the mechanisms to bail out the banks, which might I add are necessary, and think ‘well it is alright for the banks’. Look at the banks’ profits. Look at the massive pay packets. People will say: ‘This is totally insane! All that money is spent and yet it is the citizens and national budgets that will suffer as inequalities are heightened only further.’ In recent years, all the statistics point to the fact that inequalities are growing. If we fail to address this problem, citizens will turn their backs on us, fuelling the extreme right anti-European wave across Europe. And they would have good reason to: because we are not capable of responding to this feeling of inequality, injustice and insecurity. So, if we do not respond, we will not succeed.
As far as Eurobonds are concerned, as mentioned by Mr Verhofstadt, what we need to tell citizens and what we need to mobilise is indeed a defence fund, but if we have no investment fund, if we can show no real evidence of wanting to get the machinery going again – and that is why we need Eurobonds not only for defence but also for investment – well, if we do not go down that road, citizens will fail to understand anything and in particular this policy.
Some things therefore need to be said: regarding inequalities, why is not possible for certain social measures that citizens actually understand to be adopted in Europe today? For example, deciding on a minimum wage across Europe, not necessarily the same level, but merely introducing the concept of a minimum wage. It is unbelievable that in a country such as Germany, with all its talk of economic rebalancing, there is no mention, no talk of this problem. It is unbelievable that Germany, one of the few more profitable countries in Europe today, is incapable of introducing a minimum wage for its citizens. It is something that should be raised in the context of the economic and social governance of Europe.
Turning to Libya now. What Mr Schulz said was right, albeit dramatic. You have a country such as Germany hiding while the other countries try and find solutions. On this point only do I agree, and only just. What I would like when we now discuss a neighbourhood policy is for us to take stock of the many past blunders we have made in respect of this neighbourhood policy. What were our relations like with Mr Gaddafi before the bombing began? What relations did European countries have with Mr Gaddafi, Mr Ben Ali, Mr Mubarak? Let us finally make an assessment of what those articles on human rights, in the association agreements, meant to us. Zilch! Nothing! If we are not going to make this assessment, well then we should stop lying to ourselves. Did the European Council devote even five minutes’ thought to what we failed to do previously in our policy on the Mediterranean? Did you think about that? I have not read anything in the papers. I have heard nothing about what you said on this matter. If only the European Council were capable of a bit of self-criticism over its past failings.
And finally, I turn to Japan. The problem is that the best form of nuclear safety is to phase it out. There is no zero risk when it comes to nuclear power. This cannot be achieved overnight, but if we do not phase out nuclear power, we will never be safe. The problem is nothing to do with stress testing one incident. The problem, as stated by Mr Lacoste, the head of France’s Nuclear Safety Authority, is the cumulative effect of several possible incidents – something which, unbelievably until now, has never been looked at. That is what has happened in Japan. It is not just one incident, it is the accumulation of four or five incidents, plus human error, that have led to this situation
Mathematically speaking, it is not possible to guarantee this safety. If we Europeans do not speak out ... it will not be phased out overnight, but if we do not phase out nuclear power, we must stop talking about nuclear safety. There is no such thing as nuclear safety."@en1
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