Rizzo (GUE/NGL). (IT) – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the same ideas are being repeated in this Chamber about a situation which, alas, is emblematic – a case study – of so many other industrial situations typical of this continent. Europe can and must provide a different response.

If we based our judgment solely on the harsh and unpalatable logic, which undoubtedly exists – the logic of numbers, which may appear solid but which are in fact intangible – we should neither understand the problem nor be able to analyse it, since the concepts invoked are delocation, globalisation and compatibility. This is all part of the paradigm, not only of this particular multinational company, but also of so many other multinationals which, throughout their history, have often obtained large amounts of aid from national governments and significant incentives from the European Community, and then, with their traditional propensity to nationalise losses and privatise profits, carry on down this same path impervious to either guarantees or rights.

The Europe we need and want to develop must be different. It must be a Europe in which labour as an abstract concept is obviously important, but where human beings are also important; a Europe in which the company’s interests count, but so do those of the workers. The direction in which this truly emblematic case is pointing leaves us feeing profoundly embittered because this is not the type of Europe we want to build.

We should like to agree with Commissioner Špidla on the need to move towards social dialogue. However, at the very time when Parliament is preparing, fortunately with a degree of unanimity, to approve a resolution obliging ThyssenKrupp to face up to its responsibilities, we have seen that the company concerned, this very morning – shortly before being subjected to the judgment of freely-elected European Members of Parliament – is laying off over 600 employees. Is this social dialogue? Is this the Europe we want? Frankly, I believe that greater weight must be given to this Parliament’s opposition and that the will of the people’s representatives must genuinely be made to count for something.