Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2013-02-07-Speech-4-217-000"
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"en.20130207.21.4-217-000"2
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"Mr President, I have a conceptual problem with the idea of this economic harmonisation. It takes away what ought to be the main pressure on a government to reform and be competitive. You can raise your taxes up to a certain level before the money starts fleeing to friendlier jurisdictions, your revenues go down and you find that you have to correct it. You can give your workforce the most generous entitlements – paternity leave, maternity leave, holidays and maximum working days – up to a certain point before the factories start closing and the jobs start fleeing abroad. One way of thinking of the European Union is that it is an attempt to prevent that process by allowing each country to export its high costs to its competitors.
Now that might have been a feasible model 50 years ago when the main competition was coming from southern and eastern Europe. It is plainly not a feasible model when the main competition is coming from China, India, South America and the rest of it, which is why western Europe’s share of world GDP has halved in the last 40 years and will halve again in the next 20 years. The only way out of this mess is to allow people to compete."@en1
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