Verbatim report of proceedings

Tuesday, 14 February 2006 - Strasbourg

12. Services (debate)

  President. The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0409/2005) by Evelyne Gebhardt, on behalf of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on services in the internal market (COM(2004)0002 C5-0069/2004 2004/0001(COD))

Parliament is fully aware of the importance of this debate.

  Evelyne Gebhardt (PSE), rapporteur. – (DE) Mr President, Mr Bartenstein, Mr Barroso, ladies and gentlemen, today, we come to the final round of what is – next to the Constitution for Europe – the European Union’s most important legislative project, and we have made no haste about getting here. I could quite easily describe the efforts of the last few months, and the mountains of paper we have had to surmount, but the only thing is that it would take me hours to do so.

I will therefore limit myself to a few basic observations, which will not be to everyone’s liking, but I have to say, Mr President, that they matter to me.

Services must be as freely mobile in Europa as goods and money, and so the Commission’s production – after a long wait – of the draft services directive is an event to be welcomed.

It is however, regrettable that the impression has been given that this draft is intended to set the interest of the 15 ‘old’ Member States against those of the ten ‘new’ ones that joined us in May 2004. The reason for my putting ‘old’ and ‘new’ in quotation marks is that all members of our community of states have the same rights and responsibilities irrespective of the length of time that they have belonged to it.

The European Union exists to promote the well-being of its 470 million citizens on a basis of equality; it does not exist to serve shareholder value or the interests of sabre-toothed liberalisers and their market mechanisms.

I see it as being of the utmost importance that what we do politically and in legislation should put people first and foremost. Our primary concern must be with workers and their families rather than with big business and its markets, and we must also spare a thought for small businesses and artisans, who must not be allowed to be trampled underfoot.

It was for these reasons that this House needed to give the Commission’s draft a thorough makeover, and we have made considerable progress despite the ideological dividing lines between us. I am confident that the plenary vote will see us being able to take the final, crucial steps.

The end product must be a directive unencumbered by massive bureaucracy, one that benefits the workers on whom Europe’s ability to compete depends. Such a directive must respect the idiosyncrasies of the Member States and obviate the danger of a downward spiral in working conditions and wages, in quality, and in the protection of consumers and the environment.

First of all, then, we must abandon the country-of-origin principle with all its devastating effects.

I have proposed a simple solution, according to which a business legally providing services in any one Member State would be allowed to offer those services in any other Member State as well, provided, that is, that the rules and laws of the country of destination would apply to the performance of the contract. The simplicity of this reflects our experience of real life; for example, a German driving licence entitles me to drive in England, but I am not allowed to drive on the right there.

It is thus that the free movement of services is provided for and fair competition ensured.

My second proposal was that this freedom of movement be accorded only to marketable commercial services, with all other excluded from the scope of the directive. In no way, for example, should Europe be obliged to accord freedom of movement to the modern version of slavery engaged in by temporary employment agencies.

We also have to ensure that services of general interest – in the broad sense of the term – are not affected, by protecting municipal self-government and the desire of citizens to manage their own affairs in everything from the water supply to nursery schools.

Parliament will be able to adopt the services directive subject to the necessary adjustments being made to the Commission’s original draft.

We have worked through the original draft in detail and turned it inside out; in so doing, we have frustrated the creation of a job-creation scheme for lawyers that would have been beyond the financial reach of small businesses.

As I see it, this complicated piece of legislation could still do with being made a bit clearer and simpler, but something else that is called for by such a complex enterprise is the strength to make compromises.

I have gained the impression that the Commission values this House’s constructive work and is not indissolubly attached to the old version that has caused such outrage in the Member States. The combined voices of trade unions, artisans’ associations, municipalities and all the other interested parties have had a powerful and visible effect.

We have now come to a tricky corner. We can enact the sort of law that is imposed on us neither by the Commission nor the Council. If we do, we will have given services in the European Union the freedom of movement that they need, and, at the same time, this would represent a major step towards a social Europe; the rights of workers would be secured, and quality and the environment protected. With such a result under our belt, this House could take pride in having served the interests of the 470 million people in our Community.

With that in mind, I would like, again, to thank all my fellow Members in every group for their very constructive cooperation. I do believe that we will, in the final discussions that still await us this afternoon, tonight and tomorrow, find the right solutions, which really will enable us to put together a large majority in this House, one that will force both the Commission and the Council to go down the road that we in Parliament have now mapped out.

(Vigorous applause

  Martin Bartenstein, President-in-Office of the Council. (DE) Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioner McCreevy, Mrs Gebhardt, ladies and gentlemen, as Mrs Gebhardt has just said, it was in February 2004 that the Commission put forward a proposal for a directive on services in the European single market, the idea being that implementation of it would bring us a bit closer to the Lisbon objectives. In November 2004, the report of the high level group of experts chaired by Wim Kok – which, I might add, was appointed by the Commission to prepare for the mid-term review of the Lisbon strategy – called for the creation of a European market in services, which it saw as presenting the greatest opportunity for more growth in Europe. From an economic point of view, a growth spurt is just what Europe needs, and we know that – growth, and the employment that results from it, are top priorities for all of us.

In its first ten years of existence, the European internal market has chalked up some considerable successes, not least the creation of 2.5 million new jobs. It is precisely for that reason that all its remaining loose ends need to be tied up, but the legal and administrative hurdles that the Commission has put in the way of service providers have demonstrated to us how fragmented the European services markets are in reality, resulting in needlessly high prices, consumers losing out as a result of insufficient competition, and missed opportunities for increased growth and job creation.

The proposal to which I have already referred was brought in by the former Prodi Commission, the Commissioner responsible for it being Frits Bolkestein, and it has, since February 2004, been the subject of in-depth discussion in the relevant working party of the Council. In the context of public debate, it has come in for a great deal of criticism, some of which has been justified. There are those also who have used it – without any justification – as the occasion to spread anxiety.

It has to be said that the directive is quite clear about what it is intended to do, and there is widespread support for the principle behind it, that being the further freeing-up of service provision and the systematic removal of unjustified barriers to service providers.

Now is the time for the Commission to revise the means by which that is to be achieved, and the vote in your House will be essential as a basis for this. The intention is that the completion of the internal market in services should bring benefits and advantages to Europe’s citizens, consumers and businesses, while leaving no way open whereby the European social model might be undermined or jeopardised.

The people of Europe have every right to an internal market in services free from the risk of wage dumping or social dumping. If they are to get one, the services directive will have to be neutral in terms of labour law; there will also have to be clear and unambiguous rules to ensure that the directive on the posting of workers is not compromised, not least as regards the options for monitoring.

It must also be made clear beyond any doubt whatever that this services directive does nothing to compromise services of general interest in terms of their quality, the universal provision of them, or their affordability. Mrs Gebhardt has already referred to the need for this.

From within the Presidency of the Council, all eyes are now fixed on your House, as the Presidency, and the Council as a whole, look forward to the outcome of the first reading with great interest, and, if as large a majority as possible were to be achieved, that would be particularly helpful in terms of the draft’s further progress within the Council. With that in mind, we also welcome the initiatives and efforts of the two big groups in your House to achieve broad consensus by means of a good compromise, especially on controversial points, in which respect they have evidently been successful.

Once your House’s plenary has voted, which it will do the day after tomorrow, that is on 16 February, it will be for the Commission to take an active role in the codecision procedure. The Presidency will – in close cooperation with your House, but of course also with the Commission – be pressing for an even-handed directive, one that will to a large degree take into account the misgivings that have been voiced about the present proposal while also creating the legal basis for a functioning internal market in services that will make the best possible use of our potential for growth and job creation. We have now been informed that, according to two studies – one from Copenhagen and the other from Vienna – the possibility exists of the services directive resulting in the creation of some 600 000 jobs.

The Presidency also welcomes Mr Barroso’s announcement in Vienna to the effect that the plenary vote would very soon, and in good time for the March European Council, be followed by a proposal as to the points essential to a political agreement. The Austrian Presidency will then discuss these in depth and take them further – and I stress that it will do this with the full involvement of the social partners.

We have the opportunity to maximise our potential for growth and job creation by means of an internal market in services, while at the same time building up public confidence in a social Europe. That must be a goal for us all.

(Vigorous applause)

  José Manuel Barroso, President of the Commission. (FR) Mr President, Mr Bartenstein, Mrs Gebhardt, ladies and gentlemen, this week is a crucial stage for the services directive, for the completion of the internal market and for our strategy for growth and jobs in Europe. I am therefore delighted to see that the European Parliament is prepared to express an opinion on this proposal and to accept its responsibilities to the citizens of Europe. I would especially like to thank Mrs Gebhardt and all the Members most directly involved, particularly the shadow rapporteurs, who, over the past few months, have done some admirable work to enable us to reach the stage we are at today.

Today's debate and the vote to be held on Thursday represent an important moment for the future of the European Union, and this, may I say, even goes beyond the very important matter of services in the internal market. There is no doubt that we still have much to do if our economies are to be able to make the basic freedoms laid down in the Treaty a reality and to benefit from them. In a moment, Commissioner McCreevy will remind you of the progress made on this matter.

Before that, however, I would like to stress a very important aspect that goes far beyond the purely economic dimension: is the enlarged European Union of 25 Member States capable of reaching agreement on appropriate solutions to deal with extremely difficult and sensitive problems? I would add to that, can we deal, in particular, with the problems that are seen as most sensitive by public opinion? Let me be quite clear: I am convinced - and the Commission shares this view - that it is desirable to achieve strong consensus within Parliament in favour of this directive, a strong consensus that, we hope, will enable us to reach agreement in the Council and to create the conditions for convergence between our three institutions. I am confident that, this week, Parliament will be able to give shape to the acute sense of responsibility that it has demonstrated throughout this process.

As you know - and we must be frank in this matter - this directive, which was presented in January 2004 by the Commission of my predecessor, Mr Prodi, gave rise to some serious concerns in some parts of our Member States and, in general, within European public opinion. Even though they were based on legitimate fears relating to the protection of the social acquis, some of these criticisms were based on real misunderstandings. However, in some cases these criticisms also fed polemics entirely unrelated to the directive itself.

I, and the Commission over which I preside, have always made it absolutely clear that we do indeed want a real internal market in services. We want a market that works and that brings added value to our economy. We now want to translate into reality the principles of the four freedoms bequeathed to us by the founding fathers of Europe. We also want to respond to the legitimate concerns that have been raised.

The result will therefore be, if you please, ladies and gentlemen, the fruit of a compromise. By definition, we need a compromise – a compromise that honours and respects the principles of the Treaty and forms part of our programme for growth and jobs. In this regard, the Commission is prepared to support, and to include in its revised proposal, all the elements constituting a step forward on the path to creating a true internal market in services that are supported by a large majority within this Parliament.

Following almost two years of debate, it is now high time to leave the divisions behind us, to build bridges and to create the conditions for an agreement. It is time to prove to our citizens that the Union of 25 Member States does work, that it is conscious of its common destiny, and that it is able to achieve results in everybody's interests. We now need to understand what is realistic and feasible at this stage.

Following a difficult year in 2005, we are now on the way to restoring trust in the European Union. We must work on pragmatic solutions to respond to the real problems of our citizens. If the first reading in plenary on the services directive leads, on Thursday, to a vote that balances the demands of competition against our social concerns, it will be a victory not only for you, ladies and gentlemen, in the European Parliament, but also for the Union as a whole.

Ladies and gentlemen, you need have no doubts about our ambitions for Europe. On that subject, let us be quite clear on the economic question. Is it acceptable that we have 20 million unemployed within the European Union? Do we need any stronger arguments to justify our initiative? Is that not one of the main reasons for the lack of confidence in the EU? Today, the two main sectors that can create jobs in Europe are services and small and medium-sized enterprises. We must therefore give priority to those sectors, by creating a true market in services and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises.

(Applause from the right)

It is they that have the most to gain from this directive. Even though this is just the first step, I really do not think that there is any strategy more social than one that creates high-quality jobs.

Before I pass the floor to Mr McCreevy, I would like, with your permission, Mr President, to wish you all a fruitful, constructive and positive debate. Let us work together to produce a services directive that will translate our ambitions for Europe into reality in a balanced way: an enlarged Europe, a more modern and more competitive Europe, a Europe founded on the four basic freedoms bequeathed to us by our founding fathers.

(Applause from the centre and the right)

  Charlie McCreevy, Member of the Commission. Mr President, since its birth two years ago, this proposal has been in the headlines. Both its supporters and its opponents see it as a symbol. During all the controversy about this proposal, which focused on a relatively small number of issues, it was easy to forget that there are many other areas in which, I believe, broad agreement exists and in which the benefits of the proposal are recognised.

Firstly, thanks to administrative simplification, it will be easier to establish a business in the EU. This is crucial for fostering entrepreneurship, a vital element in promoting growth and jobs. Service providers will be able to obtain information and to complete administrative formalities through single points of contact in any Member State, thus simplifying, accelerating and reducing the cost of the authorisation process and obviating the need to deal with different levels of authorities.

It will also be possible to fulfil these procedures electronically, so that businesses save time and avoid incurring considerable costs in having to make visits in person – sometimes several times – in order to complete the necessary formalities with the relevant authorities.

Secondly, it will be good for consumers. Improving consumer confidence is a key component in boosting the possibilities that the internal market offers them. They will benefit as key information about businesses and the service they are providing will be made easily available. This will enable them to make informed choices when they are purchasing services. Rights of consumers are clearly set out, and any discrimination on the basis of nationality or place of business must be removed.

Thirdly, Member States will have to implement administrative cooperation to ensure that businesses are properly and efficiently supervised across the EU, while avoiding duplication of control. This legal obligation will be underpinned at a practical level by an electronic system enabling authorities to exchange information directly and efficiently. These, amongst many others in the draft directive, are provisions which will bring forward significant benefits, both for businesses and consumers – I know that you have never lost sight of this.

In assessing the amendments adopted in the lead committee’s opinion, and the further amendments tabled since, the Commission is taking a highly constructive and positive position. In particular, we intend to take on board and incorporate in our revised proposal those amendments that we believe to be supported by a broad majority in this House.

The Commission broadly welcomes amendments put forward by the European Parliament which aim to clarify and improve the Commission’s initial proposal. These relate mainly to administrative simplification, establishment and administrative cooperation.

The Commission also broadly welcomes many of the amendments adopted by the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection in relation to services of general interest. This is a sensitive question that has split opinions during the entire debate and it is clear, in my view, that the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection vote has achieved a great deal in this respect. On the other hand, I believe that services of general economic interest should stay within the scope of the proposal. Any further exclusions of sectors from the scope of the proposal should be extremely limited.

The compromise texts I have seen give us a good basis for producing our amended proposal if they are adopted. But we need to be clear about how we will deal with possible deletions from the proposal. If Parliament votes to delete Articles 24 and 25 of the proposal concerning the posting of workers, then the Commission will produce guidance to address any undue administrative burdens which may hinder the opportunities for enterprises to avail of the Posted Workers Directive. This can be done relatively quickly. There is well-established Court jurisprudence which needs to be complied with.

Equally, if health services are excluded from the scope of the directive, this does not take away from the necessity to address the increasing jurisprudence of the Court of Justice with regard to patient mobility. A separate proposal from the Commission addressing this issue will therefore be necessary.

The compromise texts also recognise the freedom that service providers should have to access markets in other Member States and to exercise their activities there. I welcome the fact that they recognise that a whole range of barriers to the provision of these services will have to be abolished while, of course, permitting certain restrictions on well-defined public policy grounds.

It is important to underline that any amendments we accept must meet the objective that this directive should represent a step towards the creation of an internal market for services. As Guardian of the Treaties, we also need to carry out our responsibility to ensure that what emerges is compatible with the fundamental freedoms as set out there and in the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice.

In addition, any restrictions that Member States may apply to service providers from other Member States have to be judged against the criteria of non-discrimination, necessity and proportionality. This must be borne in mind, particularly when we look at whatever modifications are voted to Article 16 and the freedom to provide services.

I am sure most Members will agree that this is the only way we can ensure that the real added value of this proposal is maintained. It will facilitate the cross-border provision of services and, at the same time, ensure that legitimate public policy considerations can be safeguarded. That is the balance we are all working for. It seems to me to be the essence of the compromise amendments on Article 16.

I confirm that, following the vote on Thursday, the Commission will bring forward a revised proposal with a view to facilitating a common position as soon as possible – hopefully, before the end of April. Where there is broad consensus in this House on the amendments to be made, the Commission will, subject to what I said earlier, base its modified proposals on these amendments.

In the meantime, I look forward to today’s debate and, ultimately, the outcome of Thursday’s vote. Parliament has a real opportunity to show that, after two years’ work, it can provide the basis for taking forward in a consensual way an important but hugely controversial proposal. It is a challenge I believe most MEPs want to rise to. I urge you to continue to work for the consensus which I believe is within your grasp. You can deliver a better services directive which unleashes the enormous economic potential of the services sector. This is the basis on which we will be judged by the European businesses, workers, consumers and unemployed people that stand to benefit from it.

(Applause)

  President. I would like to inform the House that an enormous demonstration is currently taking place outside this building. The Strasbourg police estimate that some 30 000 people have gathered between the Parc des Expositions and the Place de la République.

I would like to point out that it is a peaceful demonstration.

(Applause)

I am told that it is taking place in a very good spirit with live music and a whole series of attractions. There has been free access to Parliament until three in the afternoon. I am sure that this massive presence of European citizens at the doors of our Parliament will provide us with an enormous stimulus to carry out our work responsibly.

(Applause)

  Hans-Gert Poettering, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group. – (DE) Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our group welcomes the demonstration, for what it shows is that Europe’s people are at last waking up to the fact that this House is powerful. I have to say, though, that I have my doubts about whether the demonstrators’ concerns are justified by the facts, for they are demonstrating against something that is no longer even under consideration, but it is in essence a good sign that the demonstration is happening.

The March 2000 European Council in Lisbon sought to make the European Union better able to compete. It took note of the fact that the services sector was one of the most important in terms of our economy, yet Europe was making no use whatever of its potential. The freedom to provide services has been, since 1958, one of the four freedoms that the Founding Fathers enshrined in the Treaty, yet – in contrast to the movement of goods and capital and personal mobility – it has never been anything other than neglected, and the reason why it has been neglected is that it has been in this area that the Member States have been least willing to fully implement the Treaty, and they have left it to the Court of Justice to make up the rules by way of rulings in individual cases.

The intention behind the services directive is that all that should be changed. The directive is at the very heart of the Lisbon Strategy. It will make European service providers more able to compete; it will help to create jobs in this sector and will give consumers and commercial customers greater freedom of choice. It has to be said, though, that the directive is, first of all, the result of a political decision, the decision in favour of the clear implementation of the Treaty. That makes it a test case for the Commission and for the Member States; it also shows how serious we in this House are about our affirmations of the Lisbon Strategy. The proposal put forward by the Commission was an ambitious one; parts of it were open to question, others missed the mark, and it was the subject of criticism, some of which was justified and much of which was not. What became known as the Bolkestein directive became the occasion for expressions of disquiet about the consequences of globalisation, of the enlargement of the EU, about the pressure of increased competition and misgivings about economic realities in general.

(Applause)

Even here in this House, people had some misguided ideas, which manifested themselves in attempts to block the directive itself or make it easier for the Member States to erect barriers within the internal market. The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats came up with some substantial improvements to what the Commission had proposed, and I am most grateful to our rapporteur, Mr Harbour, and to all those in our Group, those in the other groups, and also the rapporteur, Mrs Gebhardt, for all the work that they have put in. Our group virtually rewrote the directive, and the document we have before us today is the result of those efforts, in the course of which we showed all the willingness to compromise that was required. While we do want broad agreement on this directive, we do not want compromise at any price. What we do want is for the business of setting up in more than one Member State and of rendering services across national borders to be substantially improved and made much simpler.

We do not want the case law of the European Court of Justice to be transposed word for word, along with all its imponderables and the specific circumstances of individual cases. What we do want is for businesses and the authorities in the Member States to have more legal certainty; we want the Member States to cooperate more in combating illegal temporary work and bogus self-employment. Most of all, though, we want a directive with clear and fair rules that establish once and for all an internal market in services, an internal market in which all service providers, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, and all consumers too, really can participate. We want a directive that really does make us better able to compete internationally, that ensures the rapid integration of the new Member States into the internal market, a directive that enable us to make the best possible use of all our potential for growth and job creation while remaining faithful to the principles of the social market economy.

What we would like to see, at the European Council’s Spring Summit, is a political agreement founded upon the outcome of this House’s vote. It must include those points that are backed in that vote by a broad majority. Then, before this year is out – perhaps even, Mr President-in-Office, under your presidency in its first half – we will be able to adopt the Lisbon Strategy’s most important legislative component.

Every day that is lost to us means less competitiveness, less of an internal market, and hence less employment and growth. We have to show the people of the European Union that we take their concerns and fears seriously. We also, however, have to give them the leadership that will restore their hope and confidence and give our great European project a future. This European Union of ours is our shared project, and as such we must defend it and lead it into the future.

(Applause)

  Martin Schulz, on behalf of the PSE Group. – (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will begin with a word of thanks to our colleague Mrs Gebhardt, who will, I hope, on Thursday see her ordeal, which has lasted weeks, brought at last to a happy conclusion. I will also express my gratitude to Mr Harbour, who can no doubt look back on even tougher weeks, to whom I wish an equally successful conclusion. Returning to my own group, I also wish to thank Mrs van Lancker, who has made her contribution to our labours under the most difficult of circumstances.

This directive is the most controversial and contentious draft to come up for debate in recent years, and rightly so, for it has to do with the question of what social model we want in Europe – no more and no less than that – and we will be giving the answer to that question this week. What is plain to us European Social Democrats is that every one of the economic and technical advances that we can point to as the successes of the second half of the twentieth century went hand in hand with raised incomes, more social security, more environmental rights, greater protection for consumers. That is what we mean when we talk about our social model. What Frits Bolkestein was aiming to do was to create growth on the assumption of less income, less social security, fewer environmental standards and less protection for consumers, and it is precisely that that we are putting a stop to today. From today, ‘Bolkestein’ is no more. That is the first piece of good news to come out of this debate.

(Applause)

The second point that must be central to our debate is that Europe will not allow itself to be divided. In both the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and our own group, it has become clear that the attempt to divide us, inherent in this Bolkestein directive, has been fought off. Bolkestein’s philosophy was that those who earn less and have lower standards should be given free access to the market so as to achieve a downward adjustment where wages and standards are high. That was an attempt at playing the new Member States off against the old ones, setting Old Europe and New Europe at odds with one another. Here in this House, we can show that the attempt to do so has failed. In my own Group just as much as in the PPE-DE, delegations from the old and new Member States are working together to solve this problem. That is another item of today’s good news.

(Applause)

There is also a third message about which we should harbour no misconceptions: many have attempted to use this services directive to promote their own interests and fashion the European internal market in the image of their own liberal-purist thinking. I am pretty certain that what I have described is what Mr Bolkestein wanted. I did get the impression that, for a time, that was what Commissioner McCreevy wanted as well, but, in the light of the real balance of power, of which he will get written evidence on Thursday, he has come to see reason.

It was thus with a great deal of interest that we heard that you – Mr Barroso and Mr McCreevy – wanted to base your future actions on what comes out of this House’s deliberations, for it is quite clear that a broad majority is forming itself in this House in favour of a new services directive, a services directive founded on the idea that free market access should be guaranteed subject to the condition that services should be subject to the laws of the country in which they are rendered. The consequence of that is that the rights in relation to social security, wages, the environment and consumers that have been built up in the Member States will be maintained, that it is on that basis that these services are rendered, and it is precisely that that we have achieved. We have, so to speak, turned ‘Bolkestein’ round to face in the right direction, and the attack by those who wanted the opposite has thereby been thwarted.

If I may spell it out in plain language, that means – and I am speaking for my group when I say this – that those who want to alter the European social model or destroy it will meet with determined resistance from Europe’s Socialists. It is a good thing, too, that they are evidently meeting with determined resistance from a substantial section of Europe’s Christian Social movement, and we are glad to see it.

(Murmurs of dissent)

We hear there the sound of dissent, but I can tell Mr Langen that the PPE-DE’s minorities generally express their views forthrightly. That we do know!

There is, though, underlying what we are discussing here today and what we will be deciding on Thursday, a message for the institutions; Mr Bartenstein has got the message, and so has Mr Barroso. Both of them have grasped – and let me stress that it is a good thing that they have – that, irrespective of what fundamental decisions they try to take, decisions that will determine the future direction of the European Union, there is no getting round the European Parliament.

Just as the Council failed in its attempt to foist upon us a Commission that we did not want, so, too, it will fail with its ill-advised Financial Perspective. The Council has had to take note of the fact that it was Parliament that adopted a proper and balanced chemicals policy. It was Parliament that kept the enlargement debate on rational lines and did not allow it to be carried along in a rush, and, on this occasion, it is Parliament that is showing the other two institutions that it is possible to do what my own country’s late President, Johannes Rau, called for in almost every speech, namely to be the protector that the little man must have in a deregulated world.

The big multinationals can hold their own in global competition, but the ordinary citizens of Europe – workers in ports and factories lorry drivers in their vehicles, those who work for the postal services or on the railways, artisan craftsmen in their workshops and nurses in hospitals – need protection in this struggle for what we call the European social model. They do not have shareholder value on their side; they need someone to defend their rights in a deregulated Europe, and that someone is, today, the European Parliament, and it is to be hoped that it will do so by an overwhelming majority on Thursday.

  Graham Watson, on behalf of the ALDE Group. – Mr President, I can assure the House that Frits Bolkestein is alive and kicking, and that is why Martin Schulz is looking so bruised these days!

This Parliament must make a choice. Down the route of reform lies a dynamic, competitive Union which creates jobs, wealth and opportunity for its citizens. Down the path of protectionism lies short-term gain for some, and long-term loss for all, especially our 20 million unemployed.

(Applause)

70% of Europe’s economy and workforce relies on a healthy service sector, a sector being slowly strangled by a mindless mass of regulation.

Mrs Gebhardt says ‘think of small businesses’. It is because we think of them that we want the country of origin principle. 90% of service companies are SMEs. The country of origin principle allows them to assess, and then to test a foreign market. They send people over to do market research. Then they trade to test it before setting up an office or a subsidiary. Doing away with the country of origin principle reduces the growth effects of this measure by half.

Liberals and Democrats favour a search for compromise, but compromise between mutually exclusive policies is no compromise. We call it the ‘Berlin blockage’. This directive does not usher in social dumping. If they are in any doubt, Mr Schulz and Mr Rasmussen should read the 1996 directive on the posting of workers. It is still in force. Rather, the draft before us transforms principles like the free market of goods, services, capital and people into reality for 450 million people. These are founding principles of our Union which are simply not compatible with second-class citizenship for our new Member States.

Certainly there will be hard decisions to take, but our task is not to protect one sector over another. It is to legislate for the good of the European economy as a whole. If we can create a single market in services to rival our single market in goods, we can raise GDP by nearly 2% and create up to 2.5 million new jobs. That is what Frits Bolkestein wanted for Europe. To allow Member States to justify barriers to service provision on the basis of social policy and consumer protection would drive a lance through the heart of his proposal. However, we would not be contemplating such an emasculation of draft legislation if Mr Barroso and his Commissioners had defended their draft directive instead of tilting at windmills.

Does Commissioner McCreevy believe that his cabinet’s lobbying of Parliament last week advanced the case for Europe’s single market? Does he not know that paragraph 3 in compromise amendment 293 is contrary to ECJ jurisprudence and the Treaty’s provision on the free movement of services? I hope, Commissioner McCreevy, that you will answer that point in your reply. No, rather than showing the way, this Commission cowers in the shadows of public opinion and Member States’ hesitation.

Greater productivity, more jobs, higher wages, stronger companies: these are all within our grasp and that is why I urge the House to vote to make Europe a dynamic marketplace for jobs and services.

(Loud applause from the centre and right)

  Heide Rühle, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – (DE) Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, there are three things I should like to say at the very outset. For a start, seldom has any European legislative measure polarised European societies to such a degree, and so I give all the more credit to Mrs Gebhardt, the rapporteur, for having succeeded in taking the edge off the Commission draft. I have to say, though – and this brings me to my third point – that this has been done to the detriment of clarity and legal certainty in this framework directive. If you want a reason for that, you only have to look at the material she had to work with, for the Commission’s draft is opaque and scarcely comprehensible, the precise opposite of ‘better regulation’. That is something that needed to be spelled out.

(Applause)

It is unfortunate that this House was unable to concentrate on what was fundamental and feasible. That we need a European framework directive on services is not a matter of dispute. The provision of services across borders brings with it many problems that cannot be solved, as such matters formerly were, through the law courts, but need to be dealt with by those who have authority to enact European legislation, namely Parliament and the Council. The threat inherent in what we have before us is that they will end up before the judges again.

There are alternatives – clear and simple alternatives that do, as is intended, reduce the bureaucracy involved in cross-border service provision. Our proposal, which the rapporteur supported for some considerable time, is essentially bipartite, involving, on the one hand, this directive being explicitly limited to commercial services, with due regard being given to existing legislation of relevance to them. What are termed services of general interest – and let me say for Commissioner McCreevy’s benefit, that by these I mean services for the benefit of all and in their general economic interest – should be described and dealt with in a separate directive, for they do not belong in this one.

In place of such a clear demarcation, we have at present a catalogue of individual derogations. It still does not include everything: it does not include education; the position of social services is yet to be resolved, as does that of the building of social housing. Some services are excluded altogether; others – such as the major services provided by grids or networks – only partially. The whole thing adds up to a patchwork of individual rules and regulations, making any overview of the whole difficult and lacking in transparency and legal certainty, and it has been the latter that everyone has had something to say about today. It is above all the small and medium-sized businesses that need it, or else they will not invest, and consumers will not buy their products.

Our proposal also has to do with Article 16, the country-of-origin principle, which is such a bone of contention. To this too there could have been a simple and clear alternative, in the shape of the opening-up of market access for services based on the country-of-origin principle for the EU as a whole, but combined with the proviso that the services would have to be provided in accordance with local laws and standards. Instead of that, the Great Coalition is currently proposing a regulation that refrains from naming the country-of-origin principle and instead opens up markets by outlawing certain local restrictions, yet this too leads to unresolved issues, with a lack of clarity and certainty about what the law actually is, and leaving the last word to the courts. We cannot endorse this draft directive. It does not encourage confidence in Europe’s ability to make its own laws, and by it, this House is undermining itself.

(Applause)

  Francis Wurtz, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group. – (FR) Mr President, Mr Barroso, Mr Bartenstein, we could have marked St Valentine's Day by debating a more romantic subject than the Bolkestein directive. Things being what they are, though, what comments can the Confederal Group of the European United Left – Nordic Green Left make on the latest rehash of such an emblematic draft directive?

First of all, we cannot help but notice with pleasure that the exceptional social and political movements against this directive, which have been growing for more than a year, have achieved their first result: we have managed to put the supporters of the directive on the defensive. After all, as Mr McCreevy, the Commission's spokesman and Mr Bolkestein's successor, has just emphasised, we have to be realistic – there have been referendums in France and in the Netherlands. Or, as John Monks, Secretary-General of the European Trade Union Confederation, said, the success of the 'no' vote 'changed the European landscape [because] everyone subsequently understood that social matters must be at the heart of European policies'. That is why we are not turning our noses up at the changes made during the various negotiations on the directive in the Commission.

However, the question that arises is whether the directive, in its amended form, has become a good directive – whether its essential substance has changed. In short, can workers now, as some claim, be reassured as to the future of their social rights? Unfortunately, our answer to that is 'no', and I think that those who claim otherwise have a heavy responsibility. Firstly, they are seriously underestimating the impact of the current Community acquis that this directive, if it is adopted, will fit into. On top of the treaties themselves, current jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice, to which Commissioner McCreevy has just referred insistently and very significantly, systematically protects businesses that provide services on the basis of the country of origin principle, and consistently criticises the rules of the host country that are accused of hindering the activities of those businesses.

Faced with this hijacking of sovereignty, I think that we need to organise a proper counter-offensive if we are going to put a brake on the race to the bottom with the social acquis. By removing all explicit references to the country of destination principle, though, the compromise reached by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament and the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats leaves itself open to the harassment of the Commission and the Court.

The supporters of this compromise also greatly overestimate, in my view, the effect of the social guarantees they claim to have introduced into the draft directive. For example, all a business based in a country with less rigorous social standards will have to do is provide its services throughout the EU using 'self-employed' people, and the host country will lose the right to require it to comply with local rules. Another example: it has been said that the provisions on the posting of workers now included in the draft directive make it possible to ensure that employees in other Member States stick to the maximum working time. Big deal! I would remind you that the maximum working week is 48 hours in the EU and even 65 hours in some countries.

These same provisions are also supposed to guarantee respect for the collective agreements. In fact, nothing is less certain. This is a grey area in Community law, as was recently acknowledged by the spokesman of the Commission's 'Internal Market and Services' Directorate-General. In such an uncertain context, we must rule out any ambiguity, any half measure and any room for interpretation given to the Commission and the Court. The right message to give them is clear: we must reject the directive in Thursday's vote and, if we do not succeed in that now, it will remain our aim throughout the process.

In the meantime, my group will, at the very least, work to insert into the directive a specific reference to the precedence of the rules of the country of destination and to limit the scope of the text as much as possible, in particular by excluding all public services. From the Atlantic to the Baltic, from Lapland to the Peloponnese, we say yes to equality, yes to solidarity, yes to the promotion of the rights of all, and thus no to the Bolkestein directive. In this spirit, I join with you, Mr President, in warmly welcoming to Strasbourg the tens of thousands of employees who have come to defend their rights and a concept of a Europe in which they can once again find their way.

(Applause from the GUE/NGL Group)

  Nigel Farage, on behalf of the IND/DEM Group. – Mr President, how well I remember the declaration of the Lisbon Agenda in this very Chamber. We were going to become the world’s most dynamic and vibrant economy, with full employment. Well, here we are, over halfway through, and what do we have? Twenty million unemployed and, in the eurozone, desperately low growth rates and a complete collapse of foreign direct investment. We are stumbling around in an economic desert, but rather like the soldiers – the French Foreign Legionnaires in Beau Geste – suddenly we have seen a vision: the services directive. It is going to give us a free market, liberal economics and the solution to all our woes. Sadly, of course, it is a mirage, because nothing is ever as it seems in the European Union. This belief that yet more legislation will improve things is wrong every time.

When we talked in 1999 about the creation of a single market in financial services, all my friends in the real world in the City of London said: ‘Nigel, you have got it wrong’. I am fairly used to people telling me that I have got it wrong. But, seven years on, what has happened? We have a financial services action plan, we have the implementation of 42 new directives and the burden on financial services is heavier than it was before. Businesses are leaving every day and moving to Switzerland and Bermuda and the same thing will happen with the services directive.

The application of this directive will vary from country to country. The Commission will say that we need more harmonisation measures to make it work. The burden on business will increase and, worst of all, it will be the European Court of Justice that can legislate and decide on all this. This directive represents yet another massive shift of power from the Member States to these failing institutions. They will no longer be able to run their own economies. We shall vote ‘no’.

(Applause from the IND/DEM Group)

  Adam Jerzy Bielan, on behalf of the UEN Group. – (PL) Mr President, one of the fundamental aims of the founding fathers of the European Economic Community was the creation of an internal market within which there would be free movement of people, goods, capital and services.

Fifty years have now gone by and this aim has not yet been achieved. In the services sector, any activity beyond the national market is still classed as the provision of services abroad, and not within a single entity, namely the European Union. The thousands of provisions in place and permits currently required are an obstacle to the development of the whole European services sector. I would remind the House that the services sector currently accounts for 70% of the European Union’s GDP.

The European Court of Justice has repeatedly ruled in favour of the right of service providers to benefit from their freedom as entrepreneurs and from the free movement of the services they provide in other Member States. There are many reliable indications that full implementation of the proposed directive will lead to the creation of 600 000 additional jobs across the European Union and will also reduce the existing barriers to the provision of services by more than 50%. In addition, there will be a reduction in the cost of the services covered by the directive, which will benefit consumers and firms making use of the services alike. European consumers, enterprises and governments will also benefit as a result of increased productivity, higher employment and higher wages.

This Parliamentary sitting will provide us with the opportunity to show what kind of Europeans we are. I am confident that we shall demonstrate courage, responsibility and wisdom. I advocate compromise, an approach that has long been adopted by this House. I cannot, however, accept a situation in which, despite the difficult compromise achieved and enshrined in the report by the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, certain responsible political groups are once again likely to succumb to scare-mongering, blackmail and sham reforms. After all, how else could one describe agreeing to further restrictions to the scope of the directive and doing away with the fundamental principle of the country of origin?

I also hope that the House will refuse to remove the provisions banning illegal barriers for workers posted abroad to provide services. These barriers do not affect citizens of specific countries they actually restrict the freedom and mobility of all Europeans, consumers and entrepreneurs.

I shall conclude with an appeal to Mr Barroso, the President of the European Commission, and to Commissioner McCreevy to continue their efforts to achieve a genuinely free market and economic development for Europe. That is also what the citizens of Europe expect from us.

  Marine Le Pen (NI). – (FR) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, just as he did on his five-year term of office, just as he did on reduced VAT rates for restaurateurs, Mr Chirac has lied for the third time about the Bolkestein directive. It was not withdrawn in March 2005 as he promised, but just went into hibernation during the referendum on the European Constitution. It has returned to the European Parliament today, one year on, amended and modified, it is true, but still just as controversial.

To judge by the large number of amendments tabled – 404 – it certainly cannot be said that the consensus for which the rapporteur for the services directive, Mrs Gebhardt, has worked so hard has been achieved. We are told that agreement has been reached in extremis between the two main groups in the European Parliament to withdraw the country of origin principle, which was the main stumbling block in the directive. There is nothing of the sort, because this compromise was only signed by the representatives of the groups, and was not submitted to the groups themselves. That is a strange idea of representative democracy passed on with the complicity of the media.

We are not impressed by these false rumours, but are continuing to look at the text of the report. This report is complicated, unclear, ambiguous, contradictory and, what is more, dangerous. Not only do services of general economic interest, in other words public market services, still feature in the report, with a few exceptions, but some of the safeguards have also been removed. In the name of simplification, the prior authorisation system has been abolished and replaced by the very bureaucratic system of the European one-stop shop.

Bolkestein is, in fact, simply the sock-puppet of the WTO, with the General Agreement on Trade in Services which will impose the country of origin principle on the states, all of them happy to throw themselves on the Genevan bandwagon. The risk of social dumping has not been removed, inasmuch as the European Commission can rely on a majority of liberal states wanting to benefit from their comparative advantages.

Given that all of our powers have been transferred to Brussels, particularly when it comes to competition, we should not be surprised to see our public services challenged, our professional organisations opposed and our characteristics disregarded. The new world order does not permit national resistance. Everything must be standardised by the law or by the market; for lack of time, the market will take care of destroying the jewels of our industry, of our commerce, of our crafts and of our liberal professions, before it attacks our health and education services and our culture. That is what we are fighting against.

  Christopher Heaton-Harris (PPE-DE), draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgetary Control. – Mr President, on behalf of the Budgetary Control Committee, I should like to say how pleased we were that all our points were taken up by the rapporteur.

Everyone in this House knows how much time has been spent on this directive. Judging by the compromise amendments tabled by the PPE-DE Group and the PSE Group, there has been quite a lot of St Valentine’s spirit around in the past month. It is a shame that these compromises go so far from the text adopted in the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, after some heroic efforts by Mr Harbour, the shadow rapporteur.

Personally, I can understand that there are times when concessions are necessary, but not these compromises, not now in a Europe where there is an obvious need for economic reform. President Barroso, as a reformed Communist, knows that often in politics the most noise comes from the political extremes. Very often it is the Left that shouts the loudest. Indeed, about 30 000 people are marching in Strasbourg today, wanting to protect the markets in which they operate. Whilst that may make them feel more comfortable in the short term, it does not help them in their employment prospects in the long term. They forget the 20 million people currently unemployed across our continent.

If we do not liberalise, if we do not maintain the country-of-origin principle, that 20 million will be joined by many others in the future and many others will continue to stagnate. As you would expect, Mr President, as a Conservative I do not often agree with my Prime Minister, Mr Blair. However, I agree with his government when it says that this directive has been watered down too much already. I wonder if his own MEPs do.

It is a challenge to this House, through voting for the amendments passed in the Internal Market Committee, to fashion a directive that allows Europe to walk the walk and not just talk the talk of liberalisation, and that creates new jobs and does not just protect the status quo.

  Pervenche Berès (PSE), draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. – (FR) Mr President, I owe the privilege of speaking in this debate to the unfortunate outcome of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs' examination of Mrs Wagenknecht's report. In the end, she removed her name from the report following the committee's vote.

In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, our draftsman, Mrs Wagenknecht, wanted to propose to reject this directive on the basis that Article 16 laid down the country of origin principle, which is incompatible with the subsidiarity principle, endangers services of general interest and risks leading to fiscal, social and environmental dumping, thus endangering the very foundations of the European social model.

Our rapporteur also proposed to oppose the country of origin principle and the so-called 'Bolkestein' directive, which we should now call the 'McCreevy' directive, on the basis that it placed 25 legal systems in competition with each other, created legal uncertainty and risked resulting in unfair competition between businesses that would no longer be subject to the same conditions.

Unfortunately, in its vote, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs did not follow her recommendations. Particularly with regard to the country of origin principle, our committee thought that it should be the rule, even though it will probably be challenged in plenary. However, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs did feel that a number of services should be excluded insofar as they are subject to specific regulations in other Community instruments. This particularly related to financial services. Fortunately, the risk of inconsistency in such a basis for exclusion was removed by the vote in the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection.

I hope that it will be the same in plenary. The fact remains that, in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, we also ruled out the liberalisation of services of general economic interest and the privatisation of public service provision bodies and defended the idea that this directive must not attack the Community rules governing competition and state aid.

  Kartika Tamara Liotard (GUE/NGL), draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. – (NL) Mr President, at the moment, there are certainly more than 30 000 demonstrators outside this Parliament building, which is where I have just been. These people have come here to demonstrate against the Services Directive, and this is not the first time that the people of Europe are letting us know that they are not in favour of this liberalisation proposal.

Whilst I am aware that many of the Members present will probably back the directive, it is not the first time that this House has appeared totally incapable of representing the European public. One example I could give of that is the failure of the European Constitution.

Much has been said about the notorious compromise between the two major groups. It is typical that an important subject such as this should so often be the product of so much backhanded scheming. That is unworthy of a democracy.

It is a cowardly compromise too, because rather than taking a clear political decision, everything is now being passed on to the courts. Whilst Bolkestein’s original proposal was unacceptable on all fronts, it was at least clear. With this compromise, Parliament is only displaying its political lack of power and soon, workers, consumers and the environment will be at the receiving end of this lack of power.

How different was this in the Committee on the Environment, Pubic Health and Food Safety, where an overwhelming majority had the political courage to reject the original proposal, the country-of-origin principle, and the undermining of public services and social structures. It is unfortunate that the members of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection displayed less common sense by the way they voted. I do hope that this House shows much better judgment on Thursday.

  Jorgo Chatzimarkakis (ALDE), draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy. – (DE) Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, this is a quite crucial week in terms of the credibility of the European Union and of this House in particular.

Demands are being made of European policymakers and of this House, and we have to face up to our responsibilities and discharge them. We constantly affirm our desire to reduce mass unemployment, so we are credible only if we do something for those people who have no work, and we can do it now.

This week sees us voting on the services directive, which, if implemented, will be capable of creating 600 000 new jobs in Europe, provided that it is adopted in the same form as it has been by my own Industrial Committee or in that approved by the Committee on the Internal Market. The compromise had taken on board the justified criticisms levelled at the Commission’s original draft, while also ensuring that new dynamism would be injected into the EU’s services market.

My opinion was accepted by the Industry Committee with only six of its members voting against doing so, but the attempt at a compromise that we now have before us, the result of haggling between the two major groups, testifies to their contempt for the specialised committees and the laborious work done by them. The common denominator is, in the final analysis, so small that it does not justify the efforts of the past years.

This compromise is not only an assault on the principle of the internal market, to which we owe our prosperity and integration, but also a slap in the face for the new Member States, who have been virtually excluded from the negotiations on it.

The vote on the services directive gives us at the European level the opportunity to make our contribution to the Lisbon Strategy, for we do indeed know that the Member States are making heavy weather of at last doing what they said they would, and it would be a sign of this House’s bankruptcy if we failed to send out a clear message about the need for more new jobs.

The trade unions, who continue to spread untruths and panic, are left cold by these arguments. Today, we can expect to see 30 000 well-organised trade unionists trying to prevent the creation of 600 000 new jobs. Some are here to try and hang on to what they already have. We now have the chance to clearly affirm our desire that Europe should be a better place in which to do business. Let us make good use of it.

  Marie-Hélène Descamps (PPE-DE), draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Culture and Education. – (FR) Mr President, back in 1957, the six founding Members of the European Economic Community made a commitment to creating a single market in which people, goods, capital and services could move freely. Almost 50 years on, only the freedom of movement of services has not yet been implemented.

In the form put before us today, the proposal for a directive on services, which forms part of the economic reform process launched by the Lisbon European Council with the aim of making Europe the most competitive and dynamic knowledge economy in the world by 2010, represents a major political step forward for the European Union. Over 18 months, the European Parliament has endeavoured to rewrite the Commission's original proposal to produce a significantly amended version. This new version is balanced, and aims to reconcile economic efficiency, in opening up the market in services, with social justice, in preserving the social standards that protect the EU's citizens. It also recognises the specific characteristics of certain services, in particular of cultural and audiovisual services. These services carry identity and value and, in this sense, cannot be regarded as consumer goods or market services like any other.

Furthermore, audiovisual services are also subject to a sectoral approach at Community level in the form of the 'television without frontiers' directive. This directive meets the aims set by the services directive, in that it guarantees the free provision of services whilst still allowing other objectives to be pursued, such as promoting European content, respecting cultural diversity and promoting pluralism of programming. Taking account of these principles, a large majority of the Committee on Culture and Education, followed by the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, came out in favour of inserting a cultural reservation clause and of excluding audiovisual services from the scope of the directive.

It is vital that the 'television without frontiers' directive, currently undergoing revisions, must remain the only reference text on the subject. It is equally vital, however, that a services directive must be adopted so that we can create a true internal market in services within the European Union.

I would like to end by congratulating Mrs Gebhardt on the quality of her report, and also Mr Harbour, Mrs Thyssen, Mr Toubon and Mr Karas on their hard work to produce a text for which we are happy to vote on Thursday.

  Kurt Lechner (PPE-DE), draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs. – (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have just two minutes – enough time for a few bullet points. Following the public debate, one could get the impression that freedom to provide services was something that this directive had invented, but it does in fact have the force of law. The problem is that it is a law by which many countries do not abide; instead, they have erected barriers and use every kind of chicanery to frustrate it. All that in fact needs to be done is for this protectionism, which is what this chicanery is all about, to be done away with, and this directive provides us with the appropriate legal means to do that.

The political and economic integration of Europe in the services sector, which accounts for 70% of GDP, will be of benefit to all. It is not, however, of crucial importance to the big global players or in terms of shareholder value, and on that point I would refer back to what was said by President Barroso and by Mr Watson. The big global players do not need the directive, for they have branches and agencies everywhere, through which they can offer their services, but it certainly is crucial to small and medium-sized businesses. It also offers benefits to private individuals in the shape of more choice and freedom, especially to workers, in that it will bring more employment, and employment – that is to say, more jobs – is the best kind of social policy.

Some are now using a Commissioner who is no longer here to defend himself as a pretext for conjuring with terms like free-market liberal, free-market radical and neo-liberal, all of which is a load of scaremongering that gets us nowhere. What matters is the text, for it is with that that the crucial progress will be made. I, too, would have liked to see rather more – that is to say, fewer derogations – emerging from the votes in the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection and in the Legal Affairs Committee, which I represent here today.

There are a few things, though, that I do regard as decisive. Firstly, nothing is being done to make the present situation worse. Secondly, progress is an absolute certainty; the only question is whether it might perhaps not be enough. Thirdly, nobody is being prevented from taking the next steps later, when the time is ripe. It may indeed be that that time will come sooner than we think.

  Raül Romeva i Rueda (Verts/ALE), draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality. – (ES) Mr President, there is nothing wrong with wanting to reduce unjustified obstacles to the free movement of services in the internal market, provided that it is done in a responsible manner, ensuring that it does not undermine social and environmental rights, and moving towards the harmonisation of the legislation on services at European level.

In its proposed form, however, this proposed directive leads to many risks, many of which have already been mentioned. In my capacity as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, I shall refer specifically to those relating to the gender dimension.

The risks to women relate basically to the creation of jobs for women and to women’s working conditions, as well as to their status as consumers of services.

Firstly, the implementation of the directive in its current form would undoubtedly have negative effects on women’s employment, particularly in sectors in which the majority of the workforce are women. What is needed today, as has been said on several occasions, is greater investment in training and hence an increase in public spending and not, as this directive proposes, simply greater competition.

It is also worrying that the Commission has not carried out an analysis of the social and employment impact, particularly in view of the effects we have seen in the case of previous liberalisations, which have led to the destruction of many jobs and have also often eroded social cohesion.

Furthermore, the liberalisation of health and social services could lead to a deterioration of social welfare and health care cover in favour of private insurance, which would affect women in particular since they are the main consumers of these services.

Finally, applying the principle of country of origin, which has been mentioned so often, to providers of services could lead to abuse and manipulation, since in fields that are not harmonised at European level, which are the majority, this principle would allow for the co-existence of several national systems and would also allow the possible juxtaposition of twenty-five different national sets of regulations, the effect of which would be that consumers would not know to whom, or when, they should complain.

  Marcin Libicki (UEN), author of the draft opinion of the Committee on Petitions. – (PL) Mr President, the Committee on Petitions supported the initial draft of the Services Directive. We welcomed the even earlier draft tabled by Commissioner Bolkenstein. I am bound to remind the House of this. In the course of our discussions and deliberations on the subject in the Committee on Petitions we also stated that, as we understand it, European integration is based on what we signed up to, and that was first and foremost the four fundamental freedoms. These four freedoms were to represent a new opportunity for Europe. They were to make it possible for the Lisbon Strategy to succeed.

We wanted to make European integration a reality. We are completely in favour, but only to the extent of what we signed up to. What we signed up to was essentially European economic integration. We have been distressed to hear it said that certain new Member States are not contributing to integration. I would point out that we were not the ones to reject the Constitutional Treaty and we are not the ones wanting to put Europe’s economy in a straitjacket today.

I have to say that I am concerned about the notion of reaching some compromise here and glossing over the differences of opinion. This would mislead European public opinion. The public actually needs to know that just as opinion outside is divided, so too is this House. We do not want to create the impression that nobody actually wants economic freedom and that nobody wants to help Europe to become the main driving force and not one of many driving forces of European success. I was saddened to hear references to social dumping in the House today. This is not consistent with a normal, healthy economy. I am not surprised that today’s demonstrators are in such high spirits because it seems they will achieve success. They will achieve the kind of success that well-paid trade union activists always achieve.

  Anne Van Lancker (PSE), draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. – (NL) Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I would like, first of all, to extend warm congratulations to Mrs Gebhardt on the hard work she has done so far. I am simply in awe. I should also like to thank the members of the other groups. I think that we should be proud of the work we have done in the last few weeks. Nothing has been discussed in closed meetings or in subterranean vaults; there has been every opportunity for open debate.

I am also indebted to the members of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. We are indeed sending a strong message, because this House now has a great responsibility. We must prove that it is possible to create an internal market for services in a bid to fully develop our social model. Accordingly, we must vote for a directive that leaves social dumping well and truly behind. That also echoes one of the messages which the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has sent out. I think that the people in the streets of Strasbourg can go along with those messages, and so can most of our fellow MEPs.

First of all, I think there is enough material on the table, such as the full observation of labour legislation, social protection, collective labour agreements and industrial relations, including collective actions, on which this House can build in order to provide absolute guarantees.

Secondly, my committee has said that the Services Directive should under no circumstances undermine existing European social provisions. The Posting of Workers Directive, in particular, is of course a sensitive issue in this respect. Very often, the Services Directive is seen as giving carte blanche to the phasing out of workers’ labour conditions and to wage cuts, and in some countries – quite a number in fact – incidents have been reported lately that are the result of fraudulent practices. We have seen examples with Laval in Sweden, Struik Foods in Belgium, and Irish Ferries, but there are many more.

Invariably, these practices are simply illegal, but as the Services Directive threatens to make inspection even more difficult, it is important that we clarify that Articles 24 and 25 are deleted while the Services Directive remains fully in force.

That is not the end of it, though. Indeed, Mr McCreevy, we will need to take measures in order to grant bona fide employers better access to information and counter bureaucratic measures, but Commissioner, we will also need to take measures in order to ensure that the legislation on the posting of workers, which is in theory sound, is observed. It is too easy to side-step this legislation and there are too many instances of misuse.

Thirdly, my committee has spelled out that something really needs to be done about the scope of this directive. It is a good thing that there is already consensus to remove social services, health services, temporary employment agencies and security services from this directive, for they work in a completely different manner. In fact, my committee took the view that all services of general economic interest should be excluded, for the simple reason that they have no commercial motive, but that it is the intention, first and foremost, to provide a service of general interest with it, in other words guarantee basic human rights. I think it would be good if these could be deleted from the directive after all.

I can be brief about the country of origin principle. According to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, this principle is unacceptable. I think that the compromise that is on the table is sound, because it allows countries where the service is provided to continue to take legislative measures for the benefit of general interest.

By way of conclusion, I hope that, on Thursday, this House will be able to send a strong message – in the shape of a new and completely overhauled text – to the Commission and the Council about the radical social adjustment to the Commission’s original document of which this European Parliament is in favour, for only then will we be able to persuade public opinion that what this House has produced is not a licence for social dumping.

  Malcolm Harbour (PPE-DE). – Mr President, it is more than two years since I started working on this directive and I have been convinced from the beginning that its objectives and the ambition to tackle the barriers to the internal market for services have been absolutely right. Why has it taken two years? We had it at the end of the last Parliament; we have seen some of the issues raised by the many speeches here today, which, in many cases, have vastly overplayed the problems but underplayed the opportunities.

With some of the high-flown rhetoric we have heard today about issues like social dumping and so on, which I have never been in any way convinced would arise from this directive, it is most important that we do not forget the opportunities, so I shall talk a little about those tonight.

Firstly, I particularly want to thank all the members of my group on the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection who have worked so tirelessly with me to reshape this text. I calculate that three-quarters of all the amendments to the text that we will vote on on Thursday originated from our group. In particular, the whole idea of a central clause called ‘freedom to provide services’ was developed by us in the run-up to the committee vote. That will form the basis for the compromise that I want to commend to all my colleagues this afternoon. I also want to thank our colleagues in the ALDE and UEN Groups who helped us achieve a very important result in the committee back in November.

This is one of the subjects to have attracted the most debate and argument over the last two years. This will be the final debate of this cycle, but I am sure we will have many more. At the heart of the debate has been Mrs Gebhardt, a very hardworking and determined rapporteur. Even though she is not listening to me – I think she is working on her voting list – I want to pay tribute to her and the very courteous and painstaking way in which she has led our work on a very complicated and difficult proposal.

I said that I wanted to look at the impact of the directive as a whole, because we should be thinking particularly about small and medium-sized businesses, which are constantly frustrated at their inability to access the internal market at the moment. There is a whole range of provisions in this proposal – no less than 81 provisions on Member States – to deal with these sorts of barriers, because businesses want to be able to go into markets; they want to be able to start up without unnecessary and bureaucratic barriers; they want to be able to send their experts to other countries. But they also want to know that they will not be subject to disproportionate and unnecessary restrictions and that includes requiring them to comply with duplicate sets of rules and authorisations when they have already complied with them in their own country. I do not think that is reasonable. The European courts do not think that is reasonable and that is contained in this compromise. If that is the devastating country-of-origin principle, then what have we been arguing about all this time? It is there in the law of the Court of Justice. My reading of this compromise is that it is not in any way eroded and we must make sure that it is not eroded when we come to the vote.

The role of the Commission has been mentioned. If Commissioner McCreevy will also listen to me – everybody is having conversations while I am addressing them –he, as the Commissioner, has a crucial responsibility to take this forward. I do not want him just to produce a proposal based word for word on this text. We need to do more work on it, because it needs to deliver benefits for business, otherwise there is no point in having it at all. I think we can do that.

I say in conclusion to Mr Bartenstein – and I am still wearing my Austrian tie, because I told him I would wear it for as long as we were in sight of a clear agreement – he can still get this on the table of the economic summit in March if he puts his mind to it.

(Applause)

IN THE CHAIR: MRS ROTH-BEHRENDT
Vice-President

  Robert Goebbels (PSE). – (FR) Madam President, it is rare for a draft directive to incite such passions. Mr Bolkestein has become the saviour for some, and the Antichrist for others. Listening to some of the speeches, however, it is clear that few people have actually read the initial text. Many of its opponents have not realised that Parliament has completely rewritten the so-called 'Bolkestein' proposal, and yet they are still calling on us to reject it. I would encourage them not to do so. Parliament must do its job as a legislator, otherwise the European Court of Justice will impose its case-law, which could be dangerous.

There are currently 53 cases relating to the free provision of services pending before the Court of Justice. The Court is obviously waiting for clarification from the European legislature. If the European Parliament did not do its work, the Court would do its own. I would encourage you to vote in favour of the compromise drawn up by Mrs Gebhardt and Mr Harbour, which opens up the internal market in services, whilst avoiding brutal and unfair competition and protecting the right of every state to defend its social model and its public services without discrimination.

Mr Bolkestein's proposal was clumsy, and it attempted to bypass the Community principle of gradual harmonisation with the country of origin principle. However, this principle is not laid down in the Treaties, even though it has been used, following Court of Justice case-law, to promote the free movement of goods. Nevertheless, services are provided by human beings, who have to be protected against social dumping. The country of origin principle encouraged a race to the bottom in regulatory terms, but the country of destination principle encourages stark and stupid protectionism. We have to abolish the protectionism and barriers to trade that have built up since 1957, particularly in the founding Member States.

The Treaty of Rome enshrined the aim of free movement of services. We are far from reaching that goal, even though our countries have essentially become service economies. Not all services can be exported. Public services will continue to be a matter for the public authorities. For public market services, the states are able to define what they mean by services of general economic interest by regulating how they are organised and financed.

In some countries, people are trying to deify the idea of public services without asking themselves whether public services are really services to the public. It is hard to accept, for example, that France is trying to protect its markets in what it calls public services, while French public and private companies are plundering other markets. The balance reached thanks to the work of Mrs Gebhardt, Mr Harbour, Mrs Van Lancker, Mrs Thyssen and others will guarantee that the states have control over the services provided to the citizens, whilst avoiding discriminatory measures.

I will end, Madam President, by saying that adopting this amended directive will consign Bolkestein to oblivion. Thanks to the new facilities, particularly provided via the one-stop shops, the Union's internal market will make progress.

  Anneli Jäätteenmäki (ALDE). – (FI) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the debate on the services directive has given rise to some powerful emotions, and we are still not completely out of the woods.

In democracy, a decision comes about through debate – sometimes lengthy debate. As a result of debates in the European Parliament, the proposal by the Commission has been improved; it has become acceptable.

The directive has not been watered down with amendments: this is a matter of the workings of democracy. Some say that the Members of the European Parliament are afraid of undertaking bold reforms and that we are afraid of pushing through the original directive. In reply to this I would say that we are not working in an ivory tower. We address legitimate causes of concern whenever necessary, and we will amend the directive if we see fit to do so. We listen to public opinion, and this is as it must be. This is called democracy, which the Union says it respects and which it even markets to the outside world.

I am prepared to support reasonable proposals for compromise, because it is better to have some sort of vague harmony than major discord. I am sure, however, that we will be able to achieve a strong consensus with regard to this issue. It would be good for the European internal market. On the other hand, we must take care that the Member States are not given a free hand to prevent the movement of trade in services on grounds that are just too flimsy.

In closing I would like to thank Evelyne Gebhard, and everyone here including Commissioner McCreevy.

  Pierre Jonckheer (Verts/ALE). – (FR) Madam President, I, for my part, should like to join others in thanking Mrs Gebhardt and Mrs Van Lancker not only for their excellent work, but also for the fairness and the spirit of cooperation they demonstrated with my, and other, groups. That being said, having heard Mr Harbour speak after Mrs Gebhardt and Mrs Van Lancker, I am not really sure that the famous joint text means the same for everyone, which worries me and reinforces my belief in the idea expressed by Mrs Rühle that the text is perhaps a compromise that increases, rather than reduces, legal uncertainty.

Mr McCreevy, Mr Barroso spoke about a misunderstanding. It is clear that the misunderstanding mainly stems from this notorious country of origin principle. We all want job creation, but jobs are not created merely by increasing competition and lowering prices with a view to increasing demand. Demand rises when people – citizens and workers alike - have confidence. If they are to have confidence, they must be convinced of the fair nature of the rules of competition. That is why the country of origin principle not only does not legally exist in the Treaties, but would also be, in my opinion, economically disastrous. We do not want a Union of 25 in which a ‘national rule versus national rule’ competition would take place. If we want to send positive political signals to the citizens of the new Member States, then let us provide ourselves with a budget that is equal to the solidarity we need to show; let us follow the Commission’s advice – and, in saying that, I address the Presidency of the Council – and see to it that all the Member States remove the restrictions on the free movement of workers; and let us see to it that 1 May 2006 is actually a 1 May for all the workers of the 25 countries of this European Union.

Finally, Mr McCreevy, during the last parliamentary term, the majority of MEPs speaking in plenary twice called on the Commission to draft a proposal for a framework directive on services of general interest - otherwise known as public services - in order to prevent these services from being contingent on the case law of the Court or the subject of derogations with regard to competition law. What is stopping you from issuing this proposal? Here is an election commitment we had made: to deal simultaneously with a framework directive on services of general interest and a directive on the internal market in services. By not issuing the proposal, you, your attitude and your Commission create an imbalance and give rise to, or increase, the mistrust felt by a small proportion of Europeans. From this perspective, you do not encourage the creation of a Union of 25 in which the dominant themes are solidarity between the East and the West and fair treatment for all workers.

  Sahra Wagenknecht (GUE/NGL). – (DE) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is always the same lies that are used to justify neo-liberal policies – that jobs would be created and growth promoted, and we have heard them time and time again today. In fact, though, the neo-liberal reconstruction of Europe over the past fifteen years has had precisely the opposite effect. Each succeeding round of liberalisation measures has put hundreds and thousands of people out of work and deeper into poverty. Every encroachment on workers’ rights reduces their purchasing power and thereby throttles growth. There are those who want unfettered capitalism, and the Bolkestein directive is one of their big projects; if it becomes reality, we will see the dawn of a Europe in which market forces and the profit motive reign unchallenged, in which quality and environmental standards are downgraded and the downward spiral of wages and social security provision is accelerated in an intolerable manner.

The feeble compromise on which the conservatives and social democrats have agreed still tends in that direction; in essential areas such as water supply or education, the radically free-market thinking of the original directive is still there. The country-of-origin principle has not really been laid to rest – that much has become glaringly apparent from the speeches by both sides – but has, instead, been left to the interpretation of the European Court of Justice. Thinking back to that court’s past rulings, the big business lobby is not likely to have any problems with that. We do not want a Bolkestein directive; we do not want a Bolkestein Europe.

For we do not want a Europe that uses the concepts of equality of opportunity and freedom to provide services as a pretext for creating the best possible conditions for big business and enabling it to maximise its profits at the expense of workers and consumers. We do not want a Europe in which basic services of general interest are made the playthings of capitalist market forces. The mania for privatisation needs to be stopped and reversed. The resistance to this brutal neo-liberal project must go on.

It is thanks to this compromise that these protests are happening at all, and so I believe that this cannot be the end of the story. The fight against the directive must go on until it eventually ...

(The President cut off the speaker)

  Philippe de Villiers (IND/DEM). – (FR) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are spectators of the Bolkestein masked ball, which has returned here to the European Parliament. This compromise, this window dressing, this deception is both a lie and a scandal.

It is a lie because we are led to believe that the Bolkestein Directive has been stripped of its substance, of its content. Nothing could be further from the truth. The country of origin principle is in there, and most definitely in there, together with the freedom to provide services, which specifically relates to self-employed craft workers. The principle of national law taking precedence over European law is missing, and we heard several speakers explain to us on several occasions that this entire matter was passing under the control, under the arbitration, of the European Court of Justice, in whose case law we are already well versed. This is scandalous.

  Guntars Krasts (UEN). – (LV) Thank you, Madam President. Now, looking at the latest amendments jointly submitted by the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and the Socialist Group, it seems a shame that the Services Directive was not adopted before the European Union’s last enlargement. Clearly, public opinion in the older Member States, to which both of the largest political groups have paid heed, currently perceives all market liberalisation measures as threats, although in fact the aim of these measures is to make the European Union stronger. I would therefore firstly like to rebut the erroneous view that the liberalisation of the services market is beneficial only for the cheap end of the market, namely, for the new Member States. Already today in high added-value services sectors – in financial business and consultancy services – this flow is greater from the older to the new Member States. The movement of services following liberalisation is not and cannot be one-way. Thus, for example, the proportion of the older Member States in total added value in the European Union construction sector constitutes 95%, while in the business services sphere the percentage is even greater: 98%. For this reason the markets of the new Member States will definitely have a permanent place for the services sector of the older Member States, with its high added value, capacity and capital. The application of the country of origin principle to the provision of services would open up the European Union’s internal market to the largest service providers in the Member States – small and medium-sized enterprises. Maintaining the country of origin principle would channel a portion of competition pressure in the labour market into the business sphere. That would have a beneficial impact on the development of business activity in the whole of Europe. Employees working outside their own countries would retain a close link with their countries of origin through their national businesses. The new Member States are interested in the export of goods and services, not in the export of the labour force. One of the arguments against the country of origin principle is the fear that living standards in the older Member States would be under threat, but the removal of the country of origin principle or its significant restriction would make the Services Directive ineffective, and that would definitely erode those standards in the future.

  Jan Tadeusz Masiel (NI). – (PL) Mr President, the initial text of the Bolkenstein directive represented an opportunity for the Europe of the Twenty-Five, and also an opportunity for the Europe of the Fifteen. Little remains of that text now. National interests have superseded European ones and the principle of solidarity has been swept aside by the egoism displayed by certain countries. Is the concern about social conditions not just a smokescreen for concern about national markets? Is there any value in the compromise reached between the Right and the Left, and can it be trusted?

During the recent debate on the European Constitution in France, serious misgivings about the latest enlargement of the Union came to the surface. Nonetheless, negotiations with Turkey were opened. The new Member States do not pose a threat to the Union.

In its initial form the Services Directive was an opportunity to redress the imbalance arising from the unfair accession conditions imposed on the new Member States. Their citizens do not have the right to work elsewhere in the Union and the agricultural subsidies are very low. At the same time, foreign supermarkets and other firms, mostly French ones, are notching up record profits in Poland. They are employing people at a fifth of the normal wage, until 10 p.m., on Sundays, and they hardly pay any taxes into the Polish Government’s coffers.

Mr Schulz, leader of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, need not lose any sleep over our situation. Our countries know best what is good for them. That ambitious programme seems to be dead and buried, even though it complied with the objectives of the Lisbon Strategy. We had the choice of travelling to a better Europe by express train or on a push bike, and we chose the push bike.

Today is St. Valentine’s Day, but there is not much evidence of love between the Member States of the old and new Union.

  Marianne Thyssen (PPE-DE). – (NL) Madam President, right from the moment when this proposal for a Services Directive saw the light of day, the Flemish Christian Democrats were among those who regarded it as extremely controversial. Its scope was too broad for our liking, the drive to deregulate too strong, the devolution of powers to the Member States was not sufficiently respected and the proposal was ambiguous in too many places. All of this resulted in a widespread fear of the impact this directive might have, which has been used and abused and has gradually developed into the very symbol representing the chasm with the public.

At the same time, we have always known that completing the internal market for services is a necessity and can make a real difference to our level of prosperity. If we as Parliament want to shoulder some of the responsibility with regard to the strategy for growth and jobs, a sound Services Directive is our instrument par excellence. The potential for creating 600 000 jobs is not something we can simply ignore.

That is why we have never voted in favour of rejection and have, from the outset, been in favour of its revision, and so far, we have succeeded in our objective. Anyone who has read the texts and placed them in context can testify to that.

With the vote in the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, we MEPs have given direction to the debate. We have proven that the proposal can be amended in a way that the objective of cutting out the red-tape and irresponsible obstacles to the free movement is achievable without affecting social protection.

I am very proud of the result which our group, under the direction of Mr Harbour in that Committee, managed to achieve. With the help of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group and the Liberals, we managed to force many of our amendments through. This was unmistakably the basis for further persuasive action and tying up loose ends in the negotiations over the last few weeks.

I would thank all fellow Members, including those of the Social Democratic group, who have contributed, for we have all done our bit to ensure that a sound package is now before us.

We should not now get bogged down by small print. We are bound to hold differing views on certain things. Sensitivities in the parties and in the Member States are different, after all. Instead of looking to the left or right, we should look at the total package that is before us and that will help us a long way in our common search for more growth and jobs.

An overwhelming majority in Thursday’s vote will also help us close a triple gap: the gap between the institutions and the public, the gap that has come about between the old and the new Member States – let us be magnanimous enough to admit this – and also the gap between the theory of the Treaty and the factual obstacles that have hindered the development of the services market far too long.

We are looking forward to the proposals which the Commission has announced, and I hope that we will succeed in our goal on Thursday.

  Richard Falbr (PSE). – (CS) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate only confirms the level of passions aroused by the draft Services Directive. Both opponents and supporters are producing arguments that in some cases are rather suspect. It has already been stated here a number of times that the free movement of services, which is one of the four basic principles underpinning the single internal market of the European Union, is not being implemented in practice. This situation has now prevailed for a long time and it is only a matter of chance that we are attempting to change it shortly after a substantial enlargement of the EU, which is in itself one of the reasons for the emotional response.

If the agreed changes are adopted, the trade unionists demonstrating in front of this building can rest easy. Their fears of cheap labour being exported to provide services will not materialise. As a former trade unionist, I welcome the fact that there are trade unionists from the new Member States among the demonstrators. Many people are asking why this should be. The answer is because they feel solidarity with trade unionists from the old Member States and because the enlargement of the EU will continue. What some may see as unnecessary today can look very different after another year has gone by. The issue is whether the Directive before Parliament will be good or bad. The wider issue is whether the Directive will be regarded as having become so incomprehensible after the flood of amendments that it would be better to reject it. If we adopt the Directive together with the agreed amendments, it will create a great deal of work for lawyers in all of our countries. In my view, just as in many previous cases, European institutions are failing to produce directives that are clear and concise, in a way that makes it easy to monitor whether they are being implemented and adhered to properly. I am not surprised that the business community is taking such a close interest in the fate of this Directive. Business in the service sector, especially where public services are concerned, is free from the sort of competitive pressures that we see in manufacturing.

In my view, the problematic provision allowing the Member States to demand fulfilment of further requirements relating to social policies or consumer protection must be removed from the Directive. I do not want to see consumer protection distorted into protectionism. At the present time many opinions are being vented on the common theme of the mistrust felt by the old Member States towards the new ones. Let us take a step towards removing one of the elements of that dispute and vote in favour of the Directive, provided that the compromises we have reached are implemented.

  President. Mr de Villiers, I should like to point out that we had a problem with the timing. You should have one-and-a-half minutes, when only one minute was allotted. That was a mistake and we cannot clarify where it came from. However, when I give someone the floor I always state how much time is allowed. I would appreciate, in future, that if there is a discrepancy, you point it out immediately. I will now allow you one minute of speaking time as it is impossible to speak coherently in the remaining 30 seconds.

  Philippe de Villiers (IND/DEM). – (FR) Madam President, I obviously find it very regrettable that, as fate would have it, this mistake crept in when one of France’s leading spokesmen for the ‘No’ campaign in the referendum was speaking. You therefore cut me off; you can protest.

The people of France cast their ‘No’ vote on 29 May 2005; they said ‘No’ to the Bolkestein Directive. I also find it regrettable that I am being cut off, with my speaking time slashed by a third, just when I am in the middle of saying that the Bolkestein Directive was unceremoniously thrown out by universal suffrage, with a kick up the backside from the people of France, and now it goes and makes a comeback here in the European Parliament. For the people of France who are tonight going to see the images on television screens across the land, this is quite simply a provocation. It is a provocation because the people of France heard Mr Chirac, the President of the Republic, say back in May: ‘the Bolkestein Directive is finished’. It was not finished – this is a provocation!

  Bernard Lehideux (ALDE). – (FR) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as members of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, the representatives of the Union for French Democracy are obviously ardent supporters of the free movement of services. There is a real need to stop the Member States’ discriminatory and protectionist practices, and we are therefore in favour of a directive on services drafted in this Parliament and not via the case law of the Court.

We do, however, demand that a balance be struck between, on the one hand, this freedom promoting the economic development of Europe and, on the other, respect for labour law, environmental protection and consumer protection.

It is true that we would have preferred genuine harmonisation to the clumsy and foolish text proposed to us. All of us in this Chamber ought to have known that this draft would be overwhelmingly and justifiably rejected by European public opinion. At the stage we are already at with this matter, we could have prevented this further blow to the way in which European integration is viewed.

I must say, Madam President, that the Commission’s lack of political judgment was only matched by that of the French governmental authorities, which unexpectedly revealed themselves to be party to this series of blunders. Getting to the heart of matters, though, I should like to say how pleased I am about the progress that has been made during our debates within this Chamber.

Ladies and gentlemen, we can ensure that labour law is protected by deleting Articles 24 and 25. We can reject the country of origin principle by adopting the compromise contained in Article 16, which has become ‘compromise’ Amendment 293. This amendment, moreover, paves the way for the harmonisation for which we all hope and pray.

We can, I hope, succeed in excluding social services and services of general economic interest from this directive by voting in favour of our amendments. Throughout this process, we have supported the rapporteurs, Mrs Gebhardt and Mrs Van Lancker, whom I thank for their listening skills and their spirit of openness. If, as we hope, Parliament really wants to proceed along these lines, then we will be able, in the final vote, to support this text because it will have been thoroughly amended.

  Jean Lambert (Verts/ALE). – Madam President, I too would like to add my voice to those who have thanked Mrs Gebhardt and Mrs Van Lancker for their considerable work on this. Listening to the debate this afternoon, I have a feeling that the vote has already taken place, because people are talking with such certainty about what is in and what is out. Nothing is out until we vote on Thursday morning.

It is certainly clear that this directive needed a rewrite. It is a pity that Parliament is doing it; we asked the Commission to take it off the table and rewrite it, but it would not do so. As others have said, many of us here have found that the Commission’s behaviour during the whole debate about the directive has been highly problematic. We have been unable to get clarity; unable to get answers to specific questions; and there has been a lack of public response to amendments tabled, not least in our committee meetings, as well as a lack of an effective social impact assessment, which might have gone some way to allaying public fears about what is in this.

It is true that there are few issues of disagreement, but they are certainly extremely important ones. If we are looking at the international context, to some of us that is about GATS, where we have heard certain things about what is really, in theory, on the table and then we hear about background negotiating positions which are leading to something else.

Many of us have had big problems with the whole country of origin theory – I do not think it is a principle – and how this, for example, might fit with the ability of Member States to seek higher standards, which is also allowed. Again, many of our questions about how the overriding public interest will come into play in this have not been fully answered.

I would agree that health should be taken out of this directive; it should never have been there in the first place, and many of us look forward to a speedy proposal from the Commission on the issues of patient mobility and not service mobility, which is why it should not have been in the directive in the first place.

(Applause)

  Roberto Musacchio (GUE/NGL). – (IT) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a huge demonstration today in Strasbourg has told us loud and clear that there is a need for a different Europe. This desire for a different Europe is the opposite of the Bolkestein directive and can find no satisfaction even in the compromise, which comes nowhere near to understanding this need. What it creates, in fact, is a predominant right to profit from services as commodities, so that trade rules and GATS become the basic law, rather than rights and best practices.

Who decides what is necessary, proportionate and non-discriminatory? This directive will end up creating a great many legal disputes. That is made worse by the fact that the compromise does not exclude public services and civic services from the scope of the directive, while it is striking that it does exclude the professions and financial and insurance services, namely the powerful sectors. The self-employed are left at the mercy of dumping, and it is easy to imagine what will happen. We want some new ideas, but instead we are offered the old ones again. That is why we shall vote against this directive and this poor compromise.

  Mario Borghezio (IND/DEM). – (IT) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are and always have been against the directive, even in its amended version. The amendments that have been introduced do not, in fact, entirely eliminate the serious consequences that the directive may entail in terms of social dumping and, above all, of weakening the role and powers of regional bodies.

Furthermore, the general proposal of bringing down barriers to the entry of foreign service providers is liable to reduce the quality of services rendered to the public, as regards ensuring that organic food is supplied to school canteens, for instance, and the actual licensing of certain services. Then there is a whole raft of regulations that the Member States and local authorities have put in place to protect consumers and users that we shall have to give up for good.

In addition, this compromise throws the door open to an enormous amount of litigation and will certainly not enable us to cut out red tape and streamline the services market. One need only think of all the disputes that will be submitted to the Court of Justice for examination and thus to European case-law, which is becoming a real European superlaw that will crush the Member States’ own legal systems as well as local and regional bodies of law. That is why we say a decided ‘no’ to this surreptitious attempt to impose a principle that is said to have been toned down in the directive …

(The President cut off the speaker)

  Roberta Angelilli (UEN). – (IT) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to say this, but the European Parliament is running the risk of creating a monster with this directive. Unfortunately, the objective of bringing down those hateful bureaucratic barriers that effectively strangle the free movement of services has substantially failed. What remains of the directive is a pastiche, the outcome of the rationale that compromise should be taken to the extreme, lumping together views that cannot coexist, namely unbridled liberalisation and protection for the corporate privileges of certain categories and sectors.

It is in fact important to realise that all the powerful sectors have been excluded from the scope of this directive – telecommunications, banking and financial services, insurance and legal services – in other words, all those sectors that have been strong enough to keep out of the directive, whereas it will apply to all the weak sectors that need greater social protection and are less able to be represented and to exert pressure.

Even so, I want to see the cup as being half full. I note that the country-of-origin principle has rightly been removed, and we hope that all services of general interest will be excluded from the scope of the directive.

I should like to highlight two contributions that we have made to the text. First, the Commission is obliged to submit a report to the European Parliament on the implementation status of the directive, in order to check that it is being implemented properly and to ensure that the directive does not breach laws protecting workers’ and consumers’ rights. Secondly, we have called for a national monitoring body to be set up in each Member State to draw up an annual report and check that the directive is being implemented, so that it does not violate workers’ rights or result in practices that cause social dumping. The body must also check that workers are afforded all due health and safety protection in the workplace. In conclusion, I call for the body to monitor …

(The President cut off the speaker)

  James Hugh Allister (NI). – Madam President, in the tension between totally free market access and the preservation of indigenous national employment, I unapologetically see the priority as protecting local jobs. Hence the country-of-origin principle, particularly in its original form in the proposed directive, is for me a bridge too far: it would be injurious to home-grown employment to permit service providers to operate in the host country of their choice without, unlike local providers, being subject to the same costly restraints in labour, consumer and environmental legislation. Thus local employers, employees and, ultimately, local consumers, would be the losers. Competition must not just be free: it must also be fair, and it seems to me that principle is being swept aside.

My second area of objection to this directive is its scope. I cannot accept that it should apply to core public services. Every nation owes a duty to provide such services and that duty should not be evaded, or the quality of such services diminished, by allowing them to be provided by the cheapest cowboy source. Commercial services are one thing, but core public services, like social housing and welfare provision, are something quite different and should not be the plaything of profit-driven providers. Thus this is a directive which I cannot, and will not, support.

  Othmar Karas (PPE-DE). – (DE) Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, things have for some time been looking good for the services directive. The Council is present today, represented by the Minister for the Economy and Labour of a country in which social partnership works and in which the social market economy is a living reality. Unity between the social partners, the social market economy and the compatibility of economic growth and competitiveness with social security are also the principles on the basis of which the Members of the European Parliament have, over recent weeks, come to agree among themselves and to rewrite the Bolkestein directive.

Over the past weeks and months, though, much of what has been said and written about the services directive has been false, with deliberate attempts being made to stir up anxieties and prejudices. To this day, there are those who would rather demonstrate than inform, who prefer to take to the streets rather than negotiate and seek division rather than sound political solutions.

We, here in this House, have taken another road, yet even here there are those who misinform without having first read. To Mrs Wagenknecht, I have to say that this directive is not about liberalisation or privatisation, and our friends in the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance need to be reminded that the first sentence of Article 16 reads: ‘Member States shall ensure free access to, and the free exercise of, services’.

What this directive does do is to remove bureaucracy and legal uncertainty; it creates economic growth and jobs whilst maintaining social security. It takes as its starting point the freedom to provide services and goes on to regulate what is to be done with that freedom.

What we have done by rewriting the Commission proposal and the resolution on the internal market, and through negotiations between the groups, is to produce a business card for the European model of the social market economy. We are not playing off one against the other. We have also listened to the people and have, in the work we have done in this House, taken their fears and concerns on board.

Europe needs this services directive. It will ensure more growth and more new jobs in Europe, and will be good for workers, entrepreneurs and for Europe. There is not one single reason to reject this directive in the form in which we will be putting it to the vote, and nor, today, is there even a single reason to demonstrate against this directive in the shape in which we will be adopting it.

The demonstrators have recognised that, too, for of the 35 000 who came to Strasbourg, fewer than 1 000 turned up outside the Parliament building. They, too, know that we are working for them.

(The President cut off the speaker)

  Hannes Swoboda (PSE). – (DE) Madam President, first of all I would like to offer you my sincere thanks for arranging for three Austrians to speak just before the break. It is a tribute to the Presidency. That is how I see it, at any rate.

Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner McCreevy, the Commission President and Minister Bartenstein are in fact right when they say that Thursday’s vote will be a very important vote, both for the development of the market in services and of the internal market in general and for the question of enlargement. That these two matters coincide has of course given rise to much anxiety that competition will now increase or there will be social undercutting. Our criticism of the directive in its present form was in fact that it will produce those very things. I do believe, however, and everyone must be convinced of this, that we have committed ourselves to the internal market as one of the instruments of European Union, and we must progressively make that internal market reality. We have also committed ourselves to enlargement. That means also allowing the neighbours who have joined us to take part in this internal market without discrimination. What we must do with this directive is to make this a reality from a social point of view.

I come from a country that lies on the interface with the enlargement countries. Much of what has perhaps not yet happened formally is in fact already reality. I know there are problems, and if I use the term ‘social dumping’ I know that some of my colleagues in my own group will say that is discriminatory. I am not talking about workers, however. I am talking about a small number of businesses that use cheap labour to practise social dumping. We therefore need to prevent even a small number giving the enlargement process or the internal market a bad image, because the internal market and enlargement are good things in themselves. I am quite sure we have made progress on this.

Journalists today are asking us whether this directive will bring any benefits at all. Article 16 in particular is important as it stands, because it clearly says what can be done and what cannot be done. I agree with the Commission that things which are discriminatory should be abolished and rules that are disproportionate or unnecessary for achieving the objectives should be abolished. On the other hand, it is important to make clear that this is not a contribution to social dumping or about undermining the progress that has already been made, because no one would understand if we were to use enlargement or the internal market to block progress or undo the progress that has already been made. With this in mind, it is right and important that we should tomorrow be able to implement the compromise we have reached today. The demonstrations have helped to draw attention to this. They were after all not against a directive but for a better one.

If the presidency and the Commission help to create a better directive, then we can really be content.

(Applause)

  Martin Bartenstein, President-in-Office of the Council. (DE) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with you and with Commissioner McCreevy that we now have a better directive in front of us, one which I hope will find a very broad majority at first reading; I say this not only as a result of having followed this debate, but as a result of the work of the last few weeks and months.

Whether by chance or thanks to the wisdom of the President, I am pleased to be able to speak as a fellow-countryman of the two previous speakers, Mr Karas and Mr Swoboda, not only because they are my fellow-countrymen, but because they have both played a considerable part in reaching this compromise in the last few weeks. I have already expressed my thanks to Mrs Gebhardt and I would like to thank both of them, and also of course Malcolm Harbour, and many others besides. I am sure you will be able to wear the Presidency tie in the next few weeks and months, Mr Harbour, because this directive will continue to be a good directive and will open the way for greater freedom to provide services.

It is and was one of the most controversial dossiers – perhaps the most controversial the European Parliament has dealt with, certainly one of the most substantial, when I look at the number of amendments that have been tabled. With REACH, too, which was on a similar scale, the European Parliament did some excellent work and really opened the way for a sensible chemicals directive. The European Parliament can be proud of that. The important thing is that there should be a large majority the day after tomorrow, not only as a matter of principle, but because we all know, for example, that there is a letter from six Member States to the Commission, that there are also still some questions open in the Commission and that a large majority in Parliament will of course send the Commission and the Council a signal that they must go along with Parliament’s opinion on this.

In my view and in that of the presidency, this compromise text achieves a great deal, on the one hand delivering clear added value on the internal market in services and the freedom to provide services, while on the other saying a clear No to any risk of social and wage dumping. I personally do not believe that social security in Europe is an obstacle to European competition and strength, but that it is in fact a prerequisite for making Europe even more competitive.

This is also a directive of great symbolic meaning. Although Mrs Thyssen said that in the last few weeks and months this directive has been the symbol of a gulf between Europe and its institutions on the one side and the public on the other – which was a pity, but was unfortunately the case – it is also symbolic of the question of whether this Europe is capable of taking us forward in the direction of greater growth and employment. On the political side, we do not have so many occasions for providing growth and employment. The Services Directive is one such occasion.

Seen in that way, it is an important symbol in many respects, and we are on the right path. In the last few months I have had the impression that all the stakeholders, including the social partners, all the responsible stakeholders, that is, want this Services Directive to succeed, because we need it; and I would like to point out that the General Secretary of the European trade unions has said it is a good compromise that ought to be adopted; many have also said they would be demonstrating for a better directive today. If we want to fill the Lisbon Strategy with life, if we want to give people a signal that we are working for growth and employment, then we need this Services Directive.

Our presidency will be continuing to work hard in the weeks ahead. We will take on board Parliament’s views and position, we will be putting it up for discussion with the social partners on 9 March and in the Competition Council on 13 March, and it will be debated by the European Council on 23/24 March. As soon as Charlie McCreevy and the Commission send us the new, revised, proposal at the end of April, which will to a large extent be based on Parliament’s work, and make it public, we will do all we can to make as much progress on this dossier as possible. I promise you that, and I also promise the European Parliament that we take its position on this very seriously and we will follow it to a very large extent.

(Applause)

  Toine Manders (ALDE). – (NL) Madam President, I deeply regret that the presidency cannot stay until the end, for we need to decide what our priorities are, and I find it deplorable that people from the smaller groups will have to take the floor this evening without the presidency being present. I am disappointed about that, and that is at the same time, in fact, the response to all the comments already made. I wanted to get this off my chest first.

It is also regrettable that the smaller groups are not involved in the negotiations. The failure to invite them is simply not an acceptable way of working. That the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and the Socialist Group in the European Parliament should now come to an agreement is, to my mind, very much to be regretted. If that is the shape of things to come in politics, I think we have taken the wrong turn and democracy in Europe is increasingly being eroded. These are two more cries from the heart which I wanted like to get off my chest.

This directive’s objective is to make a strong European economy, not with a view to competing against each other, but with a view to competing against the rest of the world. The aim is to strike a balance between consumer and employers’ interests and to position our economy well compared to the rest of the world.

I hope we will be able to find an acceptable compromise by Thursday morning. Failing that, I fear we will be making the same mistake as the Egyptians at the height of their civilisation. They only protected their achievements and no longer focused on preserving their prosperity for the future, and we all know what happened to Egyptian culture. For that reason, ...

(The President cut off the speaker)

  Elisabeth Schroedter (Verts/ALE). – (DE) Madam President, I am afraid I must disturb the show of harmony somewhat and point out that the Commission has done the European union a disservice with the Bolkestein Directive. It does not even have the excuse of having inherited it, since it failed to withdraw the directive last March. Bolkestein divides Europe into poor and rich, into east and west. Bolkestein is a draft with few winners and many losers. It is not a step forward, but a step backward for European integration. We need a services directive with a win-win situation, a services directive that combines freedom to provide services with recognition of each Member State’s social rights and the protection of workers. The country-of-origin principle, on the other hand, risks a downward spiral of social rights in Europe.

Many people from all over Europe, from France, Italy, Poland and Germany, are on the streets of Strasbourg today to protest against it. They are not protesting against the European Union, they are protesting against Europe’s drifting into neoliberalism, against the splitting of Europe. We already have laws in the European Union that have introduced the principle of ‘equal pay for equal work at an equal workplace’ into legislation in the cross-border provision of services. That is a win-win situation in legislation. And that principle is now to be undermined.

Do I understand that rightly, Mr Bolkestein? If Parliament deletes Articles 24 and 25 from the Commission draft, you intend bringing forward a new proposal? That, Mr Bolkestein, no: that, Mr McCreevy – it was a slip of the tongue, but perhaps it was right – means you must undermine the Posted Workers Directive retrospectively! Not if we can help it, Commissioner! What you say shows there was good reason for so many to be on Strasbourg’s streets today.

  Ilda Figueiredo (GUE/NGL). – (PT) We are vehemently opposed to this proposal for a directive aimed at liberalising services.

We cannot overlook the fact that this is one of the most important instruments of the so-called Lisbon Strategy – one of its very cornerstones, in fact – aimed at stepping up the liberalisation and privatisation of public services, and at fomenting social dumping and competition between workers to the benefit of economic and financial groups.

Although pressure from the public, social movements and the workers’ struggles, including today’s demonstration, has led to some fine-tuning of the original wording, the central objective remains in place. Rejection of this proposal is therefore crucial if we are to avoid letting this legislation in through the back door. In the cause of legal certainty and of the protection of social, labour, environmental and consumer rights, it is vital that this proposal be rejected, and this is the way we shall be voting.

  Johannes Blokland (IND/DEM). – (NL) Madam President, I support the gist of the directive, subject to the restrictions on which the two major groups have agreed. In that way, justice is done to the environmental and working standards that apply in the Member States.

It is important that the directive helps reduce the administrative burden for service providers who are active in other Member States.

There is every reason to assume that the country of origin principle will disappear, and that is something that I welcome. I wonder, though, whether the Council and Commission can guarantee that the Member States can render services conditional on the requirements of medical ethics.

Drinking water is a topic that is equally problematic and is, for that reason, best kept outside of the directive’s scope.

The same applies to social care and services. The recipients of those services are often not in a position to choose their providers. That is why care for people with a disability is liable to suffer.

The directive is not about the working conditions of temporary staff, for those are provided for in the Temporary Employment Directive. Consequently, there is no reason why the directive should not apply to the temporary employment industry.

The directive must be fleshed out in practice. The quality of its enforcement will be decisive in this respect.

(The President cut off the speaker)

  Eoin Ryan (UEN). – Madam President, for too long Europe has been dominated by the politics of fear: fear of globalisation, of immigration and of a race to the bottom. However, in reality, the fear is a fear of change. This is as true for Ireland as it is for every Member State. In Ireland, such fears have not been grounded on concrete economic analysis but on anecdotal evidence of the negative change that the Services Directive could bring.

It is vital, of course, that workers’ standards and conditions are protected and not undermined; guarantees have to be retained that the progress made on workers’ pay and conditions over the years is not undermined in any way. It is vital, therefore, that we support a compromise that ensures the effective control and enforcement of workers’ rights by keeping the original purpose of the directive.

However, no barriers can protect us from the forces of globalisation. Europe needs to take a confident and unified step forward. The real danger for Europe is not the danger of a race to the bottom, but relates to the need for Europe to make sure that it is winning the race to stay ahead and that it does not sink to the bottom.

Gaining a workable consensus on this directive will demonstrate to our citizens that the European Union is committed to, and capable of, competing globally. Further economic stagnation of European markets should be avoided. Most reforms start off as good intentions but can lose their original purpose in Parliament through amendments. We cannot allow a situation to develop in which, as one economist was quoted today as saying, ‘the Services Directive could end up as a good example of “death by Parliament”’.

It is essential, as Commissioner McCreevy stated, that we deliver a better Services Directive which will unleash the enormous economic potential of the services sector in Europe.

  Jana Bobošíková (NI). – (CS) Ladies and gentlemen, I am fully in favour of the European Parliament passing the Services Directive for the internal market. This includes the key measures of Article 16, which states clearly that service providers are subject only to the national provisions of their Member State. I also support the proposal from the Commission contained in Articles 24 and 25, which will greatly ease the movement of workers within the EU market. It is only by adopting the Directive in this form that we will establish firm foundations for implementing a single market in the services sector. I will now quote from the first agreement between the states of the Union on economic integration, namely the Messina Declaration, which it is now 50 years old. The statesmen of the time set themselves the goal of creating a common market and gradually introducing the free movement of labour.

I quote: ‘The governments of the Federal Republic of Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands firmly believe that the time has come to take a further step towards a united Europe’. They believed that it was necessary to achieve this goal primarily within the economic sphere, and that a united Europe must be created through the development of common institutions, the gradual linking up of national economies, the creation of a common market and the gradual harmonisation of social policies. I regard such a programme as essential, if Europe is to retain its position and renew its influence and prestige in the world, while continuing to improve the living standards of its inhabitants. Here ends this fifty-year old quotation.

Ladies and gentlemen, I hereby call particularly on those members from the aforementioned states to remain true to the aims of their political forbears and not to abandon the ideal of an open economy. To do otherwise would risk unleashing from the bottle the black and red genie of populism and nationalism, the genie that has in the past brought this continent only tyranny and poverty.

  President. The debate is now suspended and will continue at 9 p.m.

We come now to Question Time and I would like to thank the Council Presidency representative, Mr Winkler, for being flexible and allowing us to run slightly over time.

IN THE CHAIR: MR DOS SANTOS
Vice-President