Verbatim report of proceedings

Monday, 14 November 2011 - Strasbourg

1. Resumption of the session

IN THE CHAIR: JERZY BUZEK
President

(The sitting opened at 17.05): see Minutes

  President. – I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 27 October 2011.

2. Approval of the minutes of the previous sitting

  President. – The minutes of 27 October 2011 have been distributed.

Are there any comments?

(The minutes were approved)

3. Statements by the President

  President. – I wish to give you some current information. Last week, there was another earthquake in Turkey. There were further deaths, almost 700 people, and increased material losses in the region, which had already suffered in an earthquake three weeks ago. Our thoughts are with our Turkish friends. Last week’s floods in Italy and southern France also caused fatalities and considerable material damage. We appreciate the efforts of the emergency services and local authorities, which are helping the people affected by these disasters. We are deeply saddened and feel great sympathy for the families which fell victim to these disasters and for missing persons, and also sympathise with those who have lost all their belongings and are homeless.

The second brief piece of information I wish to impart is that, at the end of October, I visited Libya. I met the President, ministers and representatives of civil society. We discussed the building of democracy and a market economy. They are very much relying on Europe’s help, be it in teaching them democratic principles, building independent democratic institutions, or ensuring the functioning of structures within those institutions. They are very open to collaboration; they cannot, of course, be forced to do anything, but they are very willing to talk about it.

I have also been in Tunisia, where I met the Prime Minister, the Head of the Central Bank and the leaders of the four political parties which won the elections, and therefore those who were first on the list. There, too, there is complete openness to the European Union. I was told that ‘We have no other choice. Our choice is the European Union’. I talked with them about creating a democratic state based on the rule of law and full access by all people, including women, to all possible public activities and to the exploitation of all opportunities in an open society. All four of the parties that won the elections are ready to create a democratic Tunisia on these lines and also to cooperate with Europeans.

I have also spent almost a week in the Western Balkans: in Croatia, which is entering the EU, and also in Serbia, which recently introduced far-reaching reforms and where the main problem is the normalisation of relations with Kosovo. I was also in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the internal stalemate is coming to an end. I also visited Srebrenica, where I laid a wreath and, on behalf of the entire European Parliament, expressed deep sympathy for all the victims’ families. I believe that Srebrenica is a place that every European should visit. It is a very important place to remind us of what a lack of openness and understanding leads to.

I also wish to inform you of three current issues. This coming Wednesday, we will hold a priority debate. The President of the European Council, Mr Van Rompuy, the President of the European Commission, Mr Barroso, and the President of the Eurogroup and Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Mr Juncker, have decided to take part in this debate. This is a very important debate, as we are aware, and I encourage all of you to attend it.

Another piece of information is the fact that, today at 15.00, the plenary session of the Euro-Med Scola youth parliament came to an end. It was attended by representatives from 40 countries, and thus by young members of parliament from 40 countries in the Mediterranean region, including most EU Member States. They worked in five working groups: social dialogue and engagement; migration and integration; equal opportunities; environment, transport and renewable energy; and education and employment. They raised many of the same issues that we discuss on a daily basis: civil society, social dialogue, true equality in access to education, broad environmental protection, and achieving a balance in North Africa and the Middle East with the gradual development of a more affluent society, which is so difficult in some countries in the region.

We can be proud of this responsibility for the future of the whole Mediterranean region. I wish to inform you that our young friends are now with us in the gallery. I warmly welcome these 250 people from the Mediterranean region – a parliament which has met in this hall over two days. Yesterday and today, these young people surrounding us now were sitting in your places. We warmly welcome you!

(Applause)

Another piece of information I have for you is that I wish to invite you to take part in the high-level human rights conference which will take place at the European Parliament on 23 November. This will also be a meeting of Sakharov prize winners. The attendance of 12 prize winners has been confirmed. Perhaps not everybody will be able to attend for various reasons, but it seems that they would very much like to be there with us. There will be a broad discussion with human rights activists from all over the world. This conference will last all day on 23 November at the European Parliament, and at the end of the day, there will be an open meeting with Brussels residents at the Bozar Centre.

Finally, there is the sad news of the death of Willy De Clercq. This European and Belgian statesman has left us. For a quarter of a century, he was a Member of the European Parliament and presided over the Group of Liberals and one of Parliament’s committees. He also held the offices of Commissioner and Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium. On behalf of the European Parliament, I offer our sincere condolences to Willy De Clercq’s family. I would ask you to rise and observe a minute’s silence in memory of our colleague.

4. Request for urgent procedure

  President. – I have received a request from the Council under Rule 142 of the Rules of Procedure for urgent consideration of the draft Council decision on the approval, on behalf of the European Union, of the Declaration on the granting of fishing opportunities in EU waters to fishing vessels flying the flag of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the exclusive economic zone off the coast of French Guiana. The Council contends that use of the urgent procedure is justified by the need to ensure the continuity of the activities covered by the draft decision. The request will be put to the vote at the beginning of tomorrow’s session, and the special urgent procedure is thus being applied in this case.

5. Compatibility of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights: see Minutes

6. Composition of political groups: see Minutes

7. Signature of acts adopted under the ordinary legislative procedure: see Minutes

8. Documents received: see Minutes

9. Oral questions and written declarations (submission): see Minutes

10. Lapsed written declarations: see Minutes

11. Texts of agreements forwarded by the Council: see Minutes

12. Action taken on Parliament’s resolutions: see Minutes

13. Transfers of appropriations: see Minutes

14. Petitions: see Minutes

15. Order of business

  President – The final draft agenda, as drawn up pursuant to Rules 137 and 138 of the Rules of Procedure by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday, 10 November 2011, has been distributed. The following changes have been proposed:

[Wednesday]:

All political groups have agreed on the following order of business for Wednesday afternoon:

Item 1: Statement on the EU-US Summit

Item 2: Oral questions concerning the open Internet

Item 3: Oral questions concerning the Roma

Item 4: Statement on banning cluster munitions

Item 5: Oral questions concerning VAT legislation and the digital market

The remaining items on the order of business for Wednesday, including Wednesday morning, remain unchanged.

[Thursday]:

Two changes have been introduced:

The first change has been agreed with all the political groups: the Commission’s statement on the contribution of the common fisheries policy to the production of public goods has been removed from the agenda.

The second change has also been agreed with all the political groups: as regards the Fleckenstein report on the European Maritime Safety Agency, the vote on which is currently scheduled for Thursday, the political groups have agreed that this item should not be put to vote during this part-session but at the part-session on 30 November and 1 December. This item will therefore be voted on two weeks later. This has been agreed by all the political groups.

  Bernd Posselt (PPE). – (DE) Mr President, I am sorry but I have not understood you clearly. At one point, the interpretation seemed to indicate that the vote on the Fleckenstein report would be postponed to the mini-plenary, and at another, it stated that the debate itself was also being postponed. I would ask you to clarify this again please.

  President. – The vote has been postponed and will not take place during this part-session, but at the part-session on 30 November and 1 December. We will hold the vote two weeks later.

The order of business has thus been established.

  Pat the Cope Gallagher (ALDE). – Mr President, I merely wanted your attention.

(GA) Mr President, I hope you can help me. It is nearly five years since Irish was awarded recognition here in Europe.

Almost all of the institutions have a website in Irish. Parliament has a website in 22 of the 23 languages but none in Irish. Basically, I am asking you for assistance. When will Parliament fall into line with the other institutions and ensure that there is a website in all 23 languages and that there is no discrimination against the Irish language?

  President. – Thank you for your comment. I will deal with this issue and see what the situation is.

  Gay Mitchell (PPE). – (GA) Mr President, I would like to say a few words, please.

I would like to say a few words in support of what Mr Gallagher has said. It is rather insensitive for one language to be left out like this and I would ask that the issue be addressed.

  President. – As I have already said in reply to Mr Gallagher, I will look into this matter. I am unable to say anything on this subject today.

  Bairbre de Brún (GUE/NGL). – (GA) Mr President, on the same subject. When I speak here in the European Parliament, I speak in Irish and what I say is written in the CRE in Irish. The text remains there until that text is translated into the other 22 languages. At that point, the Irish is lost. The text in Irish of what I said in Irish is lost from the website of Parliament and nobody can find it after that. That must also be looked at.

(The President cut off the speaker)

  President. − I am sorry Mrs de Brún. I cannot say anything more than I said in reply to Mr Gallagher, nothing more. I will check it personally.

  Bairbre de Brún (GUE/NGL). – (GA) Mr President, thank you.

  President. – Nothing more, so could we please stop this discussion because I know there is a serious problem. I treat it as a serious problem.

16. Single European railway area (debate)

  President. – The next item is the report by Debora Serracchiani, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a single European railway area (recast) [COM(2010)0475 - C7-0268/2010 - 2010/0253(COD)] (A7-0367/2011).

  Debora Serracchiani, rapporteur. – (IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before beginning with a brief description of my report, I would like to thank the shadow rapporteurs who worked with me on the revision of the railway recast. I would particularly like to thank Mr Kuhn, Mr Tremosa i Balcells, Mr Zīle, Mr Cramer and Ms Wils. I would also like to thank the Chair of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, Brian Simpson, the parliamentary group coordinators and all of my colleagues for the extensive debate we have had on a report that was particularly complex but also, I believe, important for the implementation of the railway system.

It is a recast of the first railway package, which has not been correctly applied since its entry into force, and, in fact, 13 infringement procedures against Member States relating to implementation of the first railway package are currently under way. The objective of the railway recast is to achieve a single European railway market. It is an ambitious objective because the rail system is the most outdated transport system, which has not managed to catch up with other modes of transport. For example, the average percentage for rail freight in European countries is stationary at around 6-7%, while only 11-12% of passengers travel by rail.

Therefore, it is clear that rules need to be harmonised, and that new systems and new elements need to be added and strengthened to ensure that railways can develop properly, particularly where they cross borders, which is the most problematic part for European integration.

The creation of a single European market is therefore necessary, just as it was for the air transport sector. The creation of a single market will mean that citizens can use trains that can run throughout Europe, with better fares and a service on a par with that of other modes of transport. Currently, few trains can travel outside national borders. Now the aim is that they can compete with each other throughout the whole of Europe, something which – as I have said – is not the case today.

The objectives which the first railway package attempted to deliver are therefore the aim of this recast and of all the measures for unification of the rail system that will follow. This means that, starting with the railway recast, some rules need to be revised.

One of the most important points that we have discussed at length, and which I believe is also the key product of the railway recast, is the provision of a national regulatory body, a network of national regulatory bodies with clear responsibilities, a strong national regulatory body with resources like the energy regulator, which could – as many hope – allow us to have a single European regulatory body in the future.

We have tried to provide clear rules for transparency and separation of the accounts of the infrastructure manager and the services manager, by prohibiting cross transfers between the network and the services manager as happens in the case of many holding companies, for example. We have tried to maintain the separation of accounts that has been in force since 1991, according to which public funds for infrastructures must be used solely to improve infrastructure and not to finance the business of transport companies, also because these subsidies prevent fair competition between all the service operators.

As rapporteur I would have liked the railway package to be more ambitious. I would also have liked there to be a total separation between infrastructure and service operators. However, we have been given a commitment by the Commission that this will be put in place by 31 December 2012.

Other important provisions concern ease of access to infrastructures, which is essential in order to guarantee that all new operators can use network services, and in addition to total separation, the Commission has made a commitment to present a proposal for national market liberalisation by 31 December 2012.

We have also included benefits for operators that introduce significant technological innovations to reduce environmental impact, and we have included the possibility of an improvement in the sector by allowing 7-year instead of 5-year strategic plans as previously. Finally, we wanted to guarantee compliance with laws governing employment rights and safety in the workplace, and to maintain the right to strike.

  Siim Kallas, Vice-President of the Commission. – Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur and her colleagues for all their good and very intensive work and welcome the progress made by this Parliament to reach a compromise on this complex piece of legislation.

The Commission will present its work programme for 2012 tomorrow. I have already confirmed on several occasions my intention to propose further substantial reform in the rail sector next year. Let me be clear at the outset that I do not seek change for change’s sake, but rather because we need to strengthen rail to ensure it offers attractive services, capable of playing a substantial role in the transport of the future.

But rail will only fulfil its potential if rail companies are innovative, cost-efficient and forward-looking. Although the Commission has been seeking this for the past two decades, change has been very slow. So next year’s package will revitalise the process, with proposals to open domestic passenger markets and review related public service obligation rules, with further structural change to ensure fair competitive conditions for newcomers and a refinement of the rules on standards and certification of rolling stock to make the approvals process quicker and more cost effective.

Completion of work on the current proposal, the recast, is a precondition for the 2012 package. I am fully aware that discussions in both Council and Parliament proved to be difficult and subject to intense lobbying from various stakeholders. They demonstrated that rail remains a conservative sector. In some cases, some of the principles and rules already agreed ten years ago have been challenged in an attempt to undermine ongoing infringement procedures.

Let us be clear: the status quo – or even worse, backward steps – is not an option!

A large majority of the 133 amendments adopted by the Committee on Transport (TRAN) are acceptable to the Commission, even though in some cases subject to certain redrafting. However, let me draw your attention to the fact that some specific amendments voted in TRAN and others now tabled to the plenary would substantially weaken the Commission proposal. These amendments would be a step backward compared to the text agreed by Council and even compared to existing law, which is not acceptable for the Commission.

Let me insist on some of these:

First, the issue of separation between infrastructure managers and railway undertakings will be subject to new proposals at the end of 2012 and therefore, all amendments in relation to Articles 6 and 7 are premature. The new provisions on separation of accounts are contrary to the principle of financial transparency and (at least as drafted) extremely difficult for the regulators to control.

The result would be that state money paid to support the infrastructure could instead leak to an incumbent train operator, giving it an unfair competitive advantage – and, at the same time, diminishing the funds available for investment by infrastructure managers.

Secondly, debt write-off by Member States can only relate to so-called historical debt incurred before market opening.

Thirdly, the recast proposal does not modify the fundamental principles of infrastructure charging; it simply clarifies how these principles must be applied. New exemptions to infrastructure charging cannot be justified by any objective criteria.

Fourthly, national regulators must have the possibility to fulfil their oversight functions, including for cross-border traffic, and prevent problems.

Fifthly, experience shows that the competence of national regulators must be extended. However, some amendments would restrict their interventions to cases of discrimination and impede interventions to correct other undesirable distortions of the market.

Sixthly, Amendments 126 and 127 are problematic. The first would undermine the direct cost charging principle; the second would put an unnecessary administrative burden on infrastructure managers.

Seventhly, amendments restricting or removing powers for the Commission to adopt delegated or implementing acts often relate to non-essential elements. We need to make technical adjustments which, practically, should not be done in codecision.

I also need to draw your attention to the 2001 interinstitutional agreement on recasting. This agreement establishes a discipline to guarantee interinstitutional equilibrium, the right of initiative of the Commission and the right to make use of recasting as a key instrument for better law making.

Thank you for your attention.

  Jörg Leichtfried (S&D). – (DE) Mr President, I do not wish to draw this matter out longer than necessary. However, I was very surprised to hear the Vice-President say that he would not necessarily accept the result of tomorrow’s vote in Parliament. I have always understood that the Commission’s function is to propose legislation, which is then decided upon by Parliament and the Council. Has something changed, or how should I interpret the position?

  President. – We will discuss this subject right now. Your remark goes to the heart of the matter. Our discussions are indeed meant to deal with such issues.

  Werner Kuhn, on behalf of the PPE Group. – (DE) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Ms Serracchiani. She has performed a truly Herculean task in injecting a new impetus into a stagnating process that has seen almost no progress over the last 10 years, at least as far as the first railway package is concerned.

It is vital that we should mobilise cross-border traffic and that competition should be permitted in the rail sector, which is also why we in Parliament are concentrating on the key points in relation to the proposal from the Commission.

This is the first key point I should like to make: we need a strong, independent regulator, a regulatory authority that ensures fair competitive conditions to ensure that all approved railway companies are given access to the network and can provide transport services there. The decisions made there cannot be put off for 12, 24 or even 60 months. They need to be made promptly, preferably within a month, determining who is to be approved and who is to be allowed to participate.

The second consideration is the financing of the necessary infrastructural measures. This is a decisive point and, as Mr Leichtfried has already said, we would call upon the Council to agree to provide the necessary level of funding to enable the infrastructure to be developed, whether this involves the laying of track or the installation of signalling systems, Electric Monorail Transport Systems (EMTS) and safety. Another very important point: we believe that the seven years mentioned by Ms Serracchiani are very important.

As regards the calculation of track access charges: we support fair conditions for all, a clear definition of the various components of the infrastructure; in other words, which costs are fixed and which are variable, as well as the transparency of the financial flow between infrastructure operators and railway companies. We regard this as a crucial point. However, when capital is invested, it is always necessary to ensure that companies can service reasonable interest repayments from the revenue generated from track access prices. We cannot proceed here solely along dogmatic and ideological lines.

We need electronic ticketing and interoperability going forward and this is precisely what we are asking for from the Commission. People should stop trying to hide behind technical barriers. Safety with EMTS, noise abatement – the aim is to get more freight and more passengers travelling by rail, enabling us to work in an ecologically rational way using little energy and enjoying excellent distribution.

  Saïd El Khadraoui, on behalf of the S&D Group. – (NL) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I, in turn, would like to start, of course, by thanking the rapporteur for an excellent piece of work. This dossier, that you and the shadow rapporteurs have brought to a successful conclusion, is technical, complex and controversial. Obviously, there is still more work to be done as the negotiations with the Council are yet to take place. Somebody has already mentioned that, next year, we will have a ruling from the Court of Justice with respect to a number of infringement procedures – which is not unimportant – we are expecting a Fourth Railway Package which will address several issues that we have so far been unable to settle within this framework, in particular, the liberalisation of domestic passenger transport and perhaps even a decision on the prohibition of integrated structures and, hence, a strict separation between infrastructure manager and operator.

To be honest, I think it is a good thing that we are putting off that package for a while. It is a very controversial package. We need to study its impact properly. I also think that we need to test it carefully against our objectives, namely, the creation of a European railway area where the quality of service for passengers will remain intact and where employees will be able to work under good conditions.

That said, this recast is, in itself, very important, because several things will be clarified. The recast limits the Member States’ room for manoeuvre, the opportunities open to them in terms of interpreting the application of the First Package. In practice, that will translate into greater harmonisation of the operation of the railway transport market in the Member States.

We are doing this by substantially strengthening the regulator and, in the long term, by working towards the establishment of a European regulator. There will also be more transparency as regards levies, money flows, and more guarantees for the financing of rail infrastructure by imposing long-term commitments on the Member States. What I also find positive, Ms Serracchiani, is that the right to strike will be retained. However, that is something that we first have to regulate at the national level. In brief, a small step forward, but a very important step in the realisation of a European railway area for the sectors concerned.

  Ramon Tremosa i Balcells, on behalf of the ALDE Group. – Mr President, first of all, I also want to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Serracchiani, and also the shadows for the very good job they have done.

This is a very technical dossier. We have been working for a year in the Committee on Transport dealing with nearly 800 amendments. The Liberals have tried to maintain coherence in all the debates during this year. This has been difficult because the two big groups in this House are divided on some key points.

The unbundling issue, which was not proposed by the Commission but by the rapporteur, has held up the process for months and has monopolised the debates and the final vote of this recast.

We Liberals proposed to take the unbundling issue out from the recast and call the Commission to come up with a legislative proposal on this issue after having an impact assessment and after full stakeholder consultation.

We Liberals believe that the main problem of the European single railway area is a problem of openness much more than a problem of model organisation between integrated and separated models.

I am a Mediterranean liberal. I am a Catalan liberal. I come from a Mediterranean country in which there is no real openness and no real competition on freight transport.

Since the first debate, the Liberals have proposed the creation of a European regulatory body – not to create more bureaucracy or to intervene in countries where there is a national regulatory body that is efficient and strong in terms of budget and staff. The European regulator should intervene in countries in which the national regulator is not doing its job. We need a red telephone at European level to deal quickly with international competition problems in the railway sector.

Finally, the Liberals will vote against Article 6(4). The control by regulators over the revenues of infrastructure managers of railway undertakings is not so clear, so this clause could still be used for business and could create competition distortions. We are in favour of more transparency in this clause.

  Michael Cramer, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I, too, would like to thank the rapporteur and the shadow rapporteurs for the complex discussions we have had. We, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, are in favour of the opening up of the networks on ecological grounds rather than ideological ones. We need to shift traffic from road to rail in order to halt climate change and save the planet.

We know from experience with freight transport that countries that have opened up their railway networks have had a positive experience in this regard, with the United Kingdom reporting a 60% increase, the Netherlands 40%, Poland 30% and Germany 25%. In the case of those countries who refused to listen and who waited until the last moment to change, this traffic has now moved to the roads and the jobs are gone – France, for example, has recorded a decline of 28%. That must not happen again. That is why we favour opening up the networks.

We have heard that the European Court of Justice will decide which model should be chosen, in other words, whether we should follow the Spanish model of strictly separating network and operation, while maintaining a closed network, or whether we should copy other countries like Belgium, the Netherlands or Germany, where a link still exists. This is for the European Court of Justice to decide and for the Commission to implement.

Naturally, I also have a question for the Commission. Why have you waited more than 10 years, standing idly by while existing European laws were continuously flouted? You should have taken action sooner. I do not mean you personally, Mr Vice-President. However, the Commission as a whole has watched quietly for far too long while agreements were violated and laws were broken.

What we want now is a strict regulatory authority. We know that this is crucial. We need a body that is strong, that makes decisions quickly, and that remains impartial. We know that a decision must be taken within two weeks in Germany and within two months in Italy if the questionnaire is completed correctly. Since this is rarely if ever the case, nothing is going to happen there. It will take at least two years to get an answer in France. For this reason, we need a strict regulatory authority that reaches decisions quickly, is independent and that guarantees openness.

We want a European railway network rather than a nationalistic operation. Such an arrangement is a thing of the past, but we need to look to the future.

(The speaker agreed to take a blue-card question under Rule 149(8))

  Francesco Enrico Speroni (EFD). – (IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wanted to ask the rapporteur who – quite rightly in my opinion – insists that transport should be by rail rather than by road, what she thinks of the people in Italy who oppose the fast rail link between France and Italy, sometimes violently, and are even opposed to an underground link.

  Michael Cramer (Verts/ALE). – (DE) Mr President, the big question is where we invest. We will not succeed in improving the network with major projects that will be up to 70%, 60% or 40% complete by, perhaps, 2050 or 2060. We need fast decisions where efficiency is quickly apparent and the changeover can happen.

We know that Italy is involved in three major projects in which cofinancing has still not been secured. We do not want to bury money in projects, whether between Lyon and Turin, or the Brenner Base Tunnel, or the bridge spanning the Straits of Messina. What we want is efficiency as quickly as possible in order to save the climate. We have no time to lose. For this reason, we do not oppose these major projects in themselves, but rather it is our wish that the money should be put to better use. This applies not just to the Lyon-Turin project, but also to Stuttgart 21. We have witnessed this scenario in Germany before: construction goes on for 20 years, then the money dries up and we have gained nothing. This must be avoided. We need to learn from the past.

  Roberts Zīle, on behalf of the ECR Group. – (LV) Mr President, Commissioner, I should also like to start by expressing gratitude to Ms Serracchiani for her great patience, as well as to my colleagues, the shadow rapporteurs, for their cooperation, firstly, concerning the complete separation of infrastructure managers and railway undertakings. I do, however, believe that all our hard work goes to show that we have to wait for decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union, and we also have no reason to believe that Commissioner Kallas will not come up with a balanced and considered Commission proposal on the subject by the end of next year. I should also like to express my gratitude for the great understanding shown during the many rounds of negotiations on a specific market segment that exists on the European railways, the so-called Russian 1520 mm gauge. Thank you again for this understanding (which, as we are well aware, is relatively close to the standpoint of the Union on the matter) on many specific issues. First of all, it pertains to imposing a ceiling on infrastructure charges, capacity allocation schedules and modernisation requirements for track vehicles, i.e. rolling stock. Therefore, I am really grateful for this understanding and I truly hope that, despite the conflicting viewpoints we have heard today, we shall be able to vote this week on a balanced proposal, on which we could then find a compromise with the Council. Thank you.

IN THE CHAIR: ANNI PODIMATA
Vice-President

  Sabine Wils, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group. – (DE) Madam President, the obvious point of the new version of the first railway package is to secure profits for private businesses in the rail sector. The integrated public railway companies are to be destroyed by allowing subcontracts to be awarded and marshalling yards and maintenance works to be privatised and operated by private businesses from outside the railway industry. Despite the fact that experience in the United Kingdom shows that this is the wrong approach, nonetheless, this is the direction that is to be taken throughout the EU.

This policy will have a negative impact not only on those working in the railway industry, but also on passenger safety. I strongly oppose the suggestion from the Right in Parliament, contrary to the majority opinion of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, that the right to strike should be removed by invoking the vital services principle.

The railway sector is an integrated network that cannot be divided up into radical free-market, profit-oriented parts. We must not allow this to happen because it must remain possible to control the railway sector in a social, economic and ecological context into the future.

It is for this reason that my group sides with the unions and clearly favours the retention of the integrated railway companies in public hands. These companies not only provide social stability for their employees, but also offer a guarantee of increased transport volumes.

  John Bufton, on behalf of the EFD Group. – Madam President, we have in the past had problems with our rail networks since the difficult transition from nationalised rail services to privatisation. Serious problems have also arisen from the 1991 EU directive requiring Member States to separate the management of railway operation from the provision of transport services.

Due to kowtowing to Brussels, measures are implemented which are not often beneficial to the British public and are exercised with considerable difficulty. There is also an argument that for safety reasons, it would be more beneficial for railway maintenance and locomotive operators not to be commercially separate.

Particularly in light of the fact that we are not interconnected with mainland Europe (bar the Channel Tunnel), the directive has an unnecessary and disproportionate impact upon our railways. It is widely held that the first railway package was a failure leading to open conflict in committee meetings. It is then inconceivable to support a costly and disruptive proposal which does not serve to benefit the UK.

  Mike Nattrass (NI). – Madam President, increasing the independence and powers of national bodies is good. The failings of the railway package are laughable, and the share of freight being moved by rail has actually fallen since the first railway package in 2001. Are the EU regulations enforced?

The Commission will not enforce the regulations on battery cages for hens, which may well force producers who have complied out of business. So what is this about enforcement? Will cash-strapped national governments pay their fines? Some pay fines then continue to break the same rule, because the annual revenue collected exceeds the amount of the annual EU fine.

The Commission has taken 13 Member States to the European Court of Justice for failing to correctly implement various parts of the railway package. Was anything enforced? Here, the EU sought control over national policy-making decisions on railways: for example, stopping the political will to run nationalised railways. These are matters of national sovereignty and the freedom of the voters – not the EU.

The report criticises Member States for lack of investment to meet this package, but we are in the middle of an economic crisis. The legislation does not require clarification or improvement. It clearly should be scrapped.

  Antonio Cancian (PPE). – (IT) Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I thank Ms Serracchiani for the work carried out this year along with her colleagues.

I have to say that we have tried to improve the efficiency of the rail transport market. The text proposes the creation of a single European railway area. Expectations were high, but after a year of work, I believe they have been considerably reduced.

Analysis of the situation has shown that we are a long way from having a single, integrated market, and the liberalisation of national and regional passenger traffic markets in particular is still not recognised by this Parliament. We are talking about 60% of the railway market which is not actually free at the moment. Personally, I am amazed by the lukewarm approach to an issue that concerns one of the four fundamental freedoms of the European Union. Given that, in the current circumstances, we need to focus on growth, I wonder how it is possible not to remove the administrative obstacles preventing the development of competition and the European market.

The same fate has befallen treatment of the relationship between the infrastructure managers and the rail companies. In this connection, I tabled an amendment to Annex I requesting the inclusion of passenger stations under infrastructures in order to have fair and equal access for all those providing passenger services. This is important, otherwise we would start off with an incorrect division.

  Ismail Ertug (S&D). – (DE) Madam President, Ms Serracchiani, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal takes us one step closer to a simpler, more effective joint rail policy. The significantly strengthened regulatory body and financial plans spanning several years will help make rail travel more competitive and reliable.

I am also particularly pleased that the rapporteur has succeeded in including social aspects in the focus of the report. After all, an integrated rail market must offer employees the same high-standard working conditions throughout the European Union.

In this context, it is correct that the right to strike should remain inviolable. Opinion has been divided for some time in relation to the separation of the rail network and the operating companies and I would like expressly to thank the rapporteur for her tenacity and willingness to negotiate, because this has helped us find a well-balanced compromise. We now await the legislative proposal from the European Commission.

Finally, I would ask and encourage you all to give our rapporteur broad support with a mandate that will enable her to enter into discussions and negotiations with the Council. A solid path has been laid. With this in mind, I would like to thank the rapporteur and wish her well.

  Gesine Meissner (ALDE). – (DE) Madam President, Mr Kallas, I would also like to thank the rapporteur, Ms Serracchiani. This was a tough task for her, as this really is a difficult portfolio.

As has already been mentioned, the first railway package was established 10 years ago, when all Member States agreed on how the railway market in Europe could be opened up. The crazy thing is that a review carried out in 2009 indicated that only four states had actually met the provisions contained in the package. Two countries do not count as they do not have a rail network. The remainder have failed to stick to their own resolutions. This is why we need to take action once again.

It is evident that we need a comprehensive railway sector in Europe, both in the interests of the internal market and in the interests of our citizens. What we find is not just gaps in the rail lines and incompatible systems, but also legal and organisational hurdles. It is these hurdles that we have tried to eliminate here. The good news is that we now have a strong regulator at European and national level. This regulator must be independent and must also be able to take action quickly. A lot of people have said this. We have also noticed that although the separation of networks and operators may be the right solution, a lot of comparisons are required in order to establish the nature of this separation and to ensure that we have a consistent system throughout Europe. This is something that will need urgent attention next year.

There is one thing that we in the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe disagree with – Mr Tremosa has already pointed it out and we have also asked for a separate vote on this issue – and that is Article 6(4). Mr Kuhn has already indicated that he wants transparency in relation to the financial flow. We do not want to see public monies being invested in areas other than infrastructure. This is not assured by the current wording, however. This is why we really do need to vote against the last section, as otherwise we shall have no transparency. This is not in the interest of progress in the rail market.

  Isabelle Durant (Verts/ALE). – (FR) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as my colleague, Mr Cramer, pointed out, the only meaningful type of competition is competition with road transport. That is where we need to win market share.

I am pleased that the difficult debate on the complete separation of infrastructure and operations has been postponed until a later date, not least because – in my country anyway, which is a small country with a very dense network – separating them to too great an extent has resulted in much disruption and many additional costs, without bringing any new benefits or new entrants. What is the point of it, then? There are not really enough new entrants.

Secondly, I believe that what we clearly need is a strong and independent regulator. We need a separation, but we also need essential functions. We should look at it function by function and not ideologically, so as to see which functions actually need to be separated. When one goes so far as to say, for example, that IT services or human resources should be separated, I do not really see how that will help create economies of scale.

Thirdly, with regard to rail services, I believe that, on this issue too, my colleague, Mr Cramer, and I tabled an amendment to Article 13. If a workshop does not have the residual capacity to accept a new request, why should we try to force it to accept it, unless we want to disrupt the work it is already doing or the service it is already providing?

I believe, therefore, that some interesting work has been done. A huge amount of work awaits us, and there are a few points here where I feel the text could still be improved slightly.

  Peter van Dalen (ECR). – (NL) Madam President, I am of the view that the liberalisation of goods transport by rail will offer this sector a genuine future. In my country, in 2002, we separated infrastructure management from goods transport by rail and thus succeeded in stopping, and turning around, many years of decline in goods transport. As a result, we again had prospects of real growth and opportunities for entrepreneurs.

With the recast of the First Railway Package, the European Commission also wants to continue with the liberalisation. However, when it comes to this issue, this Parliament has managed to discuss everything except genuine liberalisation. I believe that is a missed opportunity. Too many speakers have been too ready to listen to protectionist railways, to poorly functioning national railway companies or to railway unions, the low point being the last sentence of Amendment 53, whereby infrastructure managers continue to be too closely linked financially to freight operators. Therefore, this is no real separation.

I am therefore voting against this report despite the rapporteur’s good work. There are still too many old-fashioned protectionist attitudes in the railway sector – in the majority of this House. This means that the future of goods transport by rail will be brought to a standstill.

  Jacky Hénin (GUE/NGL). – (FR) Madam President, the results of the railway packages are damning. Even the rapporteurs admit that the volume of freight is falling, while road transport, which emits millions of tonnes of CO2, has gained even more ground. Infrastructure is in a state of collapse due to the lack of financing. In a ridiculous attempt to compete with air transport, we are prioritising high speed at the expense of local service frequency and of the regional network effect.

Liberalisation results in fewer and fewer services for users. Despite some very timid statements of principle regarding employment conditions, the proposal being made to us, once again, is that rail companies should be further broken up. This is counterproductive and very dangerous for rail safety. It disregards, in the name of liberal dogma, a decades-old culture of rail workers and rail techniques.

What is needed, instead, is for integrated national public rail companies to be rebuilt; this should include everything from infrastructure to the specification of equipment, and should also take in the passenger and freight sectors and research and development. Then, starting from there, we will be able to build a European public rail hub in the form of an economic interest grouping.

Funding for major rail infrastructure could be provided by the European Investment Bank. The Europe of the railways should not be intended as a centre in which a few groups make a profit. Rather, it should be aimed at meeting the mobility needs of European citizens and the need to transport safe, environmentally friendly materials: goods.

  Dominique Riquet (PPE). – (FR) Madam President, I would like to thank Ms Serracchiani.

On the occasion of this vote, I am delighted with a number of advances relating to the power of national regulators, their networking on a European scale, the improved certainty of infrastructure planning and charging, the improved opening up of the provision of basic facilities to competition and the internalisation of certain costs such as noise.

Nevertheless, a certain number of fundamental points remain to be addressed: the full unbundling of infrastructure management and transport operations, the opening up of competition at regional and national level, the establishment of interoperability, the harmonisation of rail transport by strengthening the role of the European Railway Agency and social harmonisation by raising the status of railway workers.

We eagerly await the admission of these subjects to the agenda in 2012, as agreed by the Commission.

These essential reforms are vital to promote rail transport and increase its competitiveness, something which is not effectively guaranteed by the modest reform of this first railway package.

  Bogusław Liberadzki (S&D). – (PL) Madam President, I am pleased to share the view expressed by the rapporteur, Ms Debora Serracchiani, as well as by Mr El Khadraoui, on the delay in creating a common economic area for railways in Europe. There are examples of countries, and I have my own country in mind as one of them, in which the functioning of the railways is rapidly deteriorating, in technical, operational and organisational terms. I therefore gladly welcome the Commission’s initiative for Europe to be more involved in managing the railways.

It is important that railways in the EU should have good access to its eastern neighbours which operate a wider track gauge on their railways.

There is an amendment by a group of Members which seeks to facilitate such integration by excluding a section of wide track from Russia and Ukraine to Katowice on Polish territory. This involves excluding it from the application of only some of the articles of this directive. I would ask that you support this amendment.

  João Ferreira (GUE/NGL). – (PT) Madam President, rail transport is a sector of strategic importance for economic development, energy and the environment. It ensures mobility and transport of people and goods, invigorates the economy and promotes territorial cohesion. By its very nature and character, this sector calls for long-term investment and long-term development strategies, pursuing aims which have to do with the public interest and public service and are incompatible with the mercantile outlook represented by this railway package.

This package puts business interests before everything: private business profit supported by public investment. The break-up that is proposed here is tailor-made for the multinationals within the sector, which are already taking over rail transport and colonising the markets for related services in various countries.

An instructive example is that of the German multinational DB, which controls more than 60% of European freight. The liberalisation of the sector has been to the disadvantage of the general public, which is left with fewer, inferior and more expensive services, and to the disadvantage of the workers, what with the increased exploitation of the workforce on a European scale, while safety standards are dangerously jeopardised, subordinated as they are to freedom of competition.

These have been the results of liberalisation so far, and these, only even worse, will be the results of its continuation.

  Artur Zasada (PPE). – (PL) Madam President, I would like to congratulate Ms Serracchiani on a very good job. Over the last few months, the matter of recasting the first railway package has been the main and perhaps the most difficult dossier with which the Committee on Transport and Tourism has had to deal. By adopting a series of compromise amendments, it has been possible to reach an agreement which demonstrates the determination of all political groups. We all wish to travel by train in a comfortable environment, safely, and as quickly as possible and, when we go to a station, to be able to buy, at one counter, a single ticket for connections involving different operators. We are determined to achieve that goal.

We must, however, remember and be careful not to make mistakes. When aiming at free competition on the rail services market, we must remember that in some Member States, there are self-financed railways that do not link up to the national or European network, which have only industrial significance, and which operate on gauges which are different from the dominant one. The need to apply all the provisions of the directive to these separate lines, including unbundling, will result in a disproportionate and unreasonable burden and will disrupt and distort the purpose for which they have been developed.

I therefore ask that, during the vote on Wednesday, you support Amendment 135 tabled by myself, Mr Marcinkiewicz and the European Conservatives and Reformists Group and signed by dozens of Members from various political groups and Member States.

  Mathieu Grosch (PPE). – (DE) Madam President, Mr Kallas, I, too, would first like to thank the rapporteur for her work. She and many others have poured plenty of cold water on this issue throughout discussions. Not everyone’s expectations have been met in full. That is the nature of any compromise, however.

This nine-year-old railway package has still not been implemented. That is why I have a difficulty when certain people here seek to convince us that what is happening with the railways today basically boils down to the liberalisation that failed to materialise nine years ago. This is a little absurd.

What was it that Parliament wanted to achieve? We wanted greater efficiency. We wanted to create space for the railways. We also wanted the railways of the future to have a bigger market share because we knew that this was necessary for many reasons in relation to passenger and road transport. This implementation has not taken place because, as I would argue, the railway has not been a top priority in many countries. I am convinced that even if we produce the best legislation, if the Council does not play ball tomorrow, despite our decisions, we will find other people standing here in five or 10 years time saying exactly the same thing.

We have been modest in our proposals. We wanted to address various topics. Our primary concern is that we should have a strong regulator who will respect the regulations as they now stand and who will organise the opening up of the market in such a way that the railways will have a greater market share, provide more jobs and achieve greater efficiency.

When it comes to funding and the relationship between service providers and infrastructure operators, I must honestly say that the discussions of recent weeks have been almost etymological in nature. What we wanted is actually quite simple: that public monies, or what has been paid for with public monies, should be paid back by the market not just through profits. These are subsidies and must be ring-fenced. I hope that this point will be understood in the Council and Commission tomorrow. We will then have a good basis for further discussions next year.

  Georges Bach (PPE). – (FR) Madam President, Commissioner, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteur and all the speakers for their work on this report.

Above all, this document will consolidate the powers of national regulators responsible for overseeing the correct application of rules by railway undertakings and providing non-discriminatory access to infrastructure.

Realistically, however, this document will not resolve all the sector’s problems. The quality of customer service and safety should be a key focus. In addition to fair conditions of competition, there is an urgent need for investment in infrastructure and equipment, for an increase in rolling-stock capacity, for the simplification of procedures, for technical interoperability on a European level, as well as for improved technical and social conditions.

Yet, unfortunately, we are currently seeing the opposite trend in many countries: services and connections are being cancelled, stations are being closed and the number of jobs in the sector is falling.

This is certainly not in keeping with the ideological vision of full liberalisation which we are working towards.

  Silvia-Adriana Ţicău (S&D). – (RO) Madam President, the recast of the directive establishing a single European railway area consolidates and clarifies the requirements of the previous directives. I welcome the obligation on the part of the Member States to adopt a national railway infrastructure development programme over a period of at least seven years. Only by investing in rail transport will we be able to increase its market share. The conditions of access to the railway infrastructure should not make it impossible for passengers to obtain information on, or to purchase a ticket for, travel from one location to another, regardless of the number of railway transport operators providing passenger transport services between those two locations.

I believe that the separation of the provision of rail transport services from rail infrastructure management should not have negative consequences for social and employment conditions in this sector. I call on the Commission to cooperate with the relevant trade unions and users’ representatives in order to monitor technical and economic conditions and market developments in European rail transport, including employment in this sector.

  Elżbieta Katarzyna Łukacijewska (PPE). – (PL) Madam President, adopted in 2001, the railway package was intended to ensure the integration of the railway sector and enhance its attractiveness compared to other transport modes. Unfortunately, despite 10 years having passed and despite the favourable conditions, the European railway sector has been unable to develop. While road transport is growing all the time, and there are no problems in crossing borders, rail freight and rail passenger transport encounter numerous legal, technical and political obstacles.

This shows how difficult it is to create a single railway area and a better, passenger friendly and simplified railway policy. We must remember, however, that any solution to this problem must take account of different management systems in this sector in the individual EU countries and different levels of railway development and infrastructure quality. At the same time, we must not squander the great potential of this sector, which, unfortunately, is not exploited properly.

  Vasilica Viorica Dăncilă (S&D). – (RO) Madam President, the development of the European rail sector is vital if the Union is to rise to the competition and challenges facing it and satisfy the requirements of all beneficiaries. I believe that it would be beneficial to link rail transport as closely as possible with transport by inland waterways so as to ensure the best possible coverage of the entire territory of the EU and meet CO2 emission reduction targets.

It is vital to consult local and regional authorities in order to develop national railway infrastructure strategies and to support states with less developed networks. I also believe that EU Member States should use the Structural Funds more extensively for priority transport projects, including those relating to cross-border connections and urban mobility, and that more Member States should participate in the development of specialised networks in order to avoid the emergence of a multi-speed Europe where transport networks are concerned. Thank you.

  Marian-Jean Marinescu (PPE). – (RO) Madam President, it is obvious that rail transport has not developed in line with other transport sectors. The proposal on the establishment of a single European railway area set out to improve this situation. It has not been entirely successful but has made some progress. Unfortunately, there are still some Member States and railway companies which do not want genuine liberalisation of the railways. The package improves non-discriminatory access to service facilities, such as maintenance and repair or refuelling, and increases the transparency of the institutional framework of the rail market. National regulatory bodies are created to prevent discriminatory practices. These bodies should be completely independent of the railway industry and national governments if they are to be able to perform their functions.

The total independence of rail transport operators from infrastructure managers has not been achieved, but the separation of profit and loss accounting has been implemented.

  Jaroslav Paška (EFD). – (SK) Madam President, even despite the significant support provided by the European Union, railway transport is stagnating and still lags behind the performance of road transport. The first collection of regulations on railway transport in 2001 has not fulfilled the expectations of meaningful improvement and a significant increase in the attractiveness of the railway sector. Continuing differences in domestic regulations result in the fact that, while air or road transport extends beyond borders in an unhindered way, international railway services meet technical and legislative obstacles when they cross borders.

As such – if we plan to continue to build a common, integrated railway network – we have to harmonise the regulations governing transport over the Union’s railway network consistently. We can bring about an increase in the competitiveness of railway transport compared with road or air transport only by simplifying rail transport.

The organisational separation of the railway infrastructure network from the operators of transport and maintenance services will surely help in making the competitive environment in the railway sector more attractive.

However, it is essential to think also about the precise distribution of responsibility, mainly regarding safety, between the participants contributing to the operation of the system as a whole. Railway transport is regarded as safe, but accidents on railway lines usually involve extensive damage. For this reason, it is necessary to collect data on these accidents at an EU level.

  Franz Obermayr (NI). – (DE) Madam President, despite the fact that our roads are overcrowded, that people find themselves stuck for hours in traffic every day, and that rail travel can make a significant contribution to the reduction in CO2 emissions, we have still failed to switch traffic to the rail network, despite decades of trying.

When it comes to passenger transport, there is just one simple calculation required: train tickets must always be cheaper than the petrol costs for the same journey for one person. This unsatisfactory price/service ratio also depends on the market structure. As a network operation, rail travel constitutes a natural monopoly. This fact is exploited in order to exclude other market operators from competing. Naturally, this reduces the attraction for new operators, new services and, in the final analysis, for the customer.

Thus, if liberalisation is to be achieved, we need transparency and independent regulators. In relation to transport reform, the Commission should evaluate the results of the third energy package and draw up rational options that also guarantee independent network operators.

  Siim Kallas, Vice-President of the Commission. – Madam President, these remarks reflect a large variety of the details of this complex matter. I think that this railway recast legislation is worthy of support. It has some important elements, such as clear and efficient rules on infrastructure, financing and charging, the strengthening of national regulators – so the regulatory dimension will be strengthened and will be very important in our future deliberations – and better access to rail-related services. So these are elements which clearly show improvements in this railway recast package.

Of course, a lot of things will remain for the future. It is far from the end of the story – it is one step. I must ensure that our main aim is to create an attractive railway area and in order for this to happen, railways need punctuality, reliability and speed to compete with roads, and they must operate in Europe as a whole. These are the basic points. Then we can also create more jobs in the railway sector if railways offer better services for people and businesses.

So we will work on the next package and let us follow our ambitions.

  Debora Serracchiani, rapporteur. – (IT) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is true, as my colleagues who have already spoken have said, that this proposal for a directive has been a very complex task, involving 724 amendments leading to 18 compromise texts. These compromise texts include Article 7, mentioned by the Commissioner, in which Parliament invites the Commission to make a proposal for national market separation and liberalisation by 31 December 2012.

None of the proposals are in any way premature – instead, there is a clear invitation with an equally clear and precise direction. If this direction had been present from the start, it would probably have helped with the management of this extremely long railway recast. In the meantime, my assistant has had a baby, so this really has been a long and complicated gestation period, but I am sure that we understand the importance of expanding the railway system.

We have said that we need a competitive railway system. In that case, we need to have rules. We do not necessarily need many rules, but they have to be clear, and to be complied with by everyone. We know that there is a problem of free competition on the railway market, particularly with regard to freight transport. The ambition of the railway recast is to create the single European market.

Therefore, we are issuing a strong invitation to the Commission to make a clear proposal before the end of next year and, given that next year is so close, we propose that work should begin so that Parliament can fulfil its own legislative role, also because the text very recently issued by the Council is extremely cautious, including with regard to the proposals.

Therefore, we hope that Parliament will give us a clear and full mandate to carry out a complete negotiation process that will truly open up the single European market to all the expectations to which – I am picking up on the shout of pain from Mr Cancian – we must provide a response.

  President. – That concludes the debate on this item.

The vote will take place at 12.00 on Wednesday, 16 November 2011.

Written statements (Rule 149)

  Bogdan Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz (PPE), in writing. – (PL) In view of tomorrow’s vote on the revision of the first railway package, I would like to draw attention to a number of important aspects which might play a key role in the future of the EU’s railways. In some Member States, there are certain lines with a different track gauge as a remnant of the old post-Soviet system, as a result of which these lines do not form part of the national or EU railway system. Such lines were deliberately built to meet regional needs in terms of the transport of goods from third countries. The length of these lines and the traffic on them are not usually included in the calculation of trains per kilometre for national transport purposes. Member States should therefore be able to exclude such lines and the operators serving them from the application of the directive. Consequently, together with Mr Zasada, I have tabled Amendment 135 in order to resolve the issues I have mentioned.

  Andreas Mölzer (NI), in writing. – (DE) Ten years ago, there were already worrying signs of stagnation in the railway sector. Despite all the liberalisation projects at EU level, rail transport never managed to gain ground vis-à-vis other modes of transport. One of the reasons for this may be that many countries have invested billions in their road infrastructure, so that funding for rail transport has suffered as a result. The high rail infrastructure costs in comparison with other modes of transport are, however, one of the greatest obstacles to combined transport. This makes it all the more important that flagship projects such as the development of the Baltic-Adriatic axis should be pushed forward. The Baltic-Adriatic axis is an international economic lifeline that will cater for the infrastructural development of the volume of transport that will move from road to rail in the coming decades, bringing with it new potential between north-eastern Europe and the Adriatic region. However, as we focus on cross-border passenger and combined transport, we should not forget about regional lines. After all, massive savings were achieved here over the last decade. If there are no regional connections to international and EU cross-border rail transport, then potential customers will be excluded. It is also necessary to prevent the risk that the liberalisation of rail transport could lead to a concentration on attractive main routes and a consequent decline in services to rural regions.

  Vilja Savisaar-Toomast (ALDE), in writing. – (ET) The main objectives of the first railway package, which entered into force in 2003, were the creation of a united railway region, the licensing of railway enterprises and the optimisation of the use of railway infrastructure and the setting of usage fees. Unfortunately, the desired objectives were not achieved for the following reasons: 1) the infrastructure’s insufficient and less prioritised financing in comparison with road transport; 2) the obstruction of competition; 3) the scarcity and ineffectiveness of supervisory organisations. The rapporteur initially proposed complete separation, i.e. the proprietor of the infrastructure and the organiser of the freight transport must not be one and the same organisation. This modification has been implemented in Estonia. This has, however, created great opposition, both in the TRAN Committee and in different political groups. At the moment, greater separation is recommended to Member States, but in order to achieve complete separation, the Commission would have to make a proposal based on research. At the same time, the opening of the domestic market in passenger transport to new entrants and their fair treatment is demanded, including in the establishment of infrastructure charges and the planning of travel times. One of the most important items for discussion is the further funding of infrastructure, in which there is a perceived need for greater public sector participation that would develop the EU’s rail network more extensively. This also sets recommended and permitted marginal rates for charges, which should guarantee all market participants equal treatment and sufficient funding for rail infrastructure. At the same time, the Baltic States are left with the opportunity to apply higher charges, since their rail width differs from that of the EU system, and their rail network is mainly used to transport third-country goods; to date, this desired practice has functioned well.

  Csanád Szegedi (NI), in writing. – (HU) Even if we make every effort to put the economies of the European Union’s Member States on the path to growth, this alone will not be enough to offer Europe a way out of its current crisis unless we make the energy investments required by it. Sensible harmonisation of Europe’s railways is vital in terms of Europe’s continued development. However, I think it is particularly important to point out that the crisis in Europe is not only economic; it is also a societal and social crisis. In view of this, it is not only European railways that need to be harmonised; harmonisation of railway employees’ pay also needs to take place. We can only back this report with the proviso that it brings about an improvement in the livelihoods and living conditions of Hungarian railway employees.

  Dominique Vlasto (PPE), in writing. – (FR) Ten years after the first railway package, the report on the single rail market is somewhat lacking: while rail freight’s modal share continues to fall, taking the train from one Member State to another still seems to be very complicated. If we want rail transport to stand up to the economic and environmental issues of the single market, it is imperative that we improve current legislation, which has given too much leeway to a market that is struggling to become less fragmented. At a time when the Commission is about to open domestic passenger transport to competition, regulations should no longer vary so widely from one Member State to another, as this risks increasing distortions of competition that already penalise passengers and certain railway undertakings. The new directive rightly aims to tackle these obstacles to competition by reinforcing the powers of national regulators, price transparency and the independence of infrastructure managers. I therefore urge those of you who want to organise free and non-distorted competition between railway operators, and to propose opportunities for alternative and more affordable rail transport to our fellow citizens, to adopt the recast of the railway package tomorrow.

17. Implementation of Professional Qualifications Directive (debate)

  President. – The next item is the report by Emma McClarkin, on behalf of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, on the implementation of the Professional Qualifications Directive [COM/2024(INI)] (A7-0373/2011).

  Emma McClarkin, rapporteur. – Madam President, earlier this year, I was given the privilege of being the rapporteur for this report; my first since being elected. The issue of professional qualifications is very important and is one of the top priorities of the Single Market Act to boost growth.

The report is a great opportunity for Parliament to provide real input and focus for the Commission’s future legislative proposal due to be released on 13 December. First and foremost, I would like to thank my fellow shadows; I am extremely grateful for all the input they have provided throughout the process.

Over the past few months, I have met with many different professionals, regulators, competent authorities and other stakeholders. They all tell me the same thing: professionals across the EU are waiting for us to deliver on our promise to enhance mobility. They are providing essential services across the EU, helping to drive our economy and enhancing our citizens’ quality of life. They are keen to help deliver for the single market. We need to provide a framework that enables them to do this.

In drafting my report, I took into consideration their views and came up with four areas where improvements in the directive could be made. In the first place, we need to simplify information and procedures for citizens and professionals. Competent authorities, professional bodies and Member States need to provide clear, concise and centralised information to professionals. That is why I have asked the Commission to establish an on-line portal that clearly provides all the necessary information and signpost professionals to the relevant authorities in the host Member State.

Secondly, a number of the provisions currently used in the directive require immediate updating. Critically, we also need to update the way in which professions are regulated across the EU. I firmly believe that the most effective way to enable the free movement of workers would be to reduce the number of regulated professions in Europe, whilst maintaining the necessary safeguards and caveats for those professions with health and safety implications.

Indeed, the protection of public health and safety is a vital aspect of this directive. Continuous professional development is absolutely crucial in maintaining professional standards, especially in the health care sector. On the controversial issue of languages, I have asked that the Commission clarify the provisions in the directive so as to allow competent authorities flexibility in assessing language skills during the recognition process. Most importantly, I have asked the Commission to implement a proactive alert mechanism contained within the internal market information system that will trigger an alert to all Member States when regulatory action has been taken against a professional’s rights to provide services, whilst respecting personal data protection.

Finally, a major problem described by many professionals in the public consultation is quite simply a lack of trust in the current system. I therefore asked the Commission to introduce an obligation that competent authorities proactively share information over the IMI system to inject this confidence.

Now we come to the issue of the professional card. It is clear that whilst it may be valuable to some professions, concerns raised in the pilot projects reveal that the concept still needs to be refined. That is why I am very clear in my belief that any card must be voluntary, and that a thorough impact assessment is absolutely crucial to determine whether or not the professional card will be a useful initiative. Sadly, a number of my colleagues did not share my view and instead voted in committee to push the card through without an impact assessment. However, in my report, we have called on the Commission to provide evidence of added value of the card before it is introduced, and I hope that they will do just that.

There are other areas where I would have preferred a different outcome and which I hope we can improve on with the legislative proposal. Nonetheless, the report as a whole provides an excellent indication to the Commission on Parliament’s position. On a number of issues, we are very clear: we need to make information on recognition easier to understand and access; we need to update those existing provisions that are out of date, and we need Member States to reconsider the justifications for regulating certain professions. We must maintain and build up the protections granted to the public and patients by establishing an alert mechanism. Finally, we must inject confidence into the system, utilising IMI, ensuring proper transposition by Member States, and investigating the potential value of a professional card.

To finish, I would like to thank the Commission, especially Jürgen Tiedje, and, once gain, the shadows and advisers, for working so hard on this dossier. I look forward to working closely with all of you again when the legislative proposal is released later this year; thank you for helping to make my first report such a success.

  Michel Barnier, Member of the Commission. – (FR) Madam President, honourable Members, good evening to you all. I would like to thank you for giving me the floor in order to raise an extremely important issue at a time when our discussions are centred on our citizens, the single market, and the human dimension of that single market, which we wish to enhance. Recognition of professional qualifications is of vital interest to our citizens. Twenty-eight per cent of them today envisage working in another country at some point in their career.

Between 2007 and 2010, the automatic recognition of professional qualifications allowed more than 100 000 Europeans to make that personal goal a reality. We believe this mechanism has even greater potential. Today, it applies to some 6.4 million professionals, of whom 5.7 million are health professionals, 160 000 are veterinary surgeons, and more than 435 000 are architects.

Ladies and gentlemen, these sorts of figures clearly show what free movement of professionals could mean for the internal market as a whole.

That is why we want to, and should, facilitate that recognition, making it simpler and faster. The recognition of qualifications is a vehicle for greater trust, and goodness knows we need our citizens and businesses to trust more in the European project right now.

I would like to follow these general remarks by saying how happy I am that the own-initiative report you have just presented, Ms McClarkin, shows real convergence with many of the ideas proposed in the Commission Green Paper published last June. This confirms once again the strong cooperation between our two institutions, which I value greatly. I also witnessed the quality and sincerity of our relationship at the public conference organised by the Commission on 7 November in Brussels, at which many of you were present, particularly the Chair, Mr Harbour, as well as Ms Turunen, Ms Vergnaud and Ms Le Grip, who were all keen to speak in the panel discussions.

I should particularly like to thank you, Ms McClarkin, and the Chair, Mr Harbour, and to welcome the work carried out by the other Members of the European Parliament who, as part of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, contributed to the discussion you have presented in a highly constructive manner.

I would like to state that, as far as I am concerned, the report you have just presented provides clarification and makes a very significant contribution right at a time when we are putting the finishing touches to the legislative proposal that will be presented by the Commission on 20 December. Our positions are not always identical but, apart from a few subtle differences, there are no major differences of opinion.

I would just like to emphasise four important points. First of all, the professional card. The main aim of modernising the directive is to promote mobility by simplifying the procedures involved in the mutual recognition of qualifications, and by making them more efficient. As I have already said, that is why we are considering creating this European professional card, which should be simple, practical and specific. It is not a traditional smart card, which could prove very expensive and, in any case, difficult to bring out at a reasonable cost. The card we are proposing would be more like an electronic certificate based on an information exchange between the competent authorities. This card would be optional for professionals but compulsory for the competent authorities, and could reduce the time required to process a recognition request from several months to a few weeks. Of course, the Member States of origin would need to be much more involved, and, as was said earlier, the internal market information system (IMI) would have to be used in order to help reduce costs for all concerned.

The second point is the number of regulated professions. I am aware – and you also mentioned it a moment ago, Ms McClarkin – of the debate on the number of regulated professions, which some consider too high. On this sensitive issue, I would like to put things in context. Of the 800 categories of regulated professions, 43% are health professionals, and 9% work in education or are professionals from the social sector. If I may give my opinion objectively, I do not think it is unreasonable that, given the sensitive nature of these sectors, the professions included within those sectors should be regulated. I therefore believe that we should first look at what exactly is being regulated and why. I have not excluded the idea of initially applying a compulsory, enhanced transparency measure for Member States. It is up to those Member States to endeavour to make a critical analysis of the number and type of regulated professions. The other day, I attended the Competitiveness Council, where one of the ministers around the table, the Portuguese minister, explained that Portugal had taken the decision to eliminate around 15 regulations that were considered unnecessary. However, while we are waiting for Member States to take the steps we have encouraged, we shall propose solutions such as partial access, which could reduce the difficulties experienced by some professionals in terms of mobility.

My third point concerns preserving automatic recognition. Automatic recognition is a system that currently promotes mobility. It is an acquis that we want to maintain. I am very pleased that Parliament supports this view. Nevertheless, I shall propose to modernise the system and go even further by extending it to other professions, particularly through common frameworks for training, which could be useful in replacing the previous concept of common platforms. We need to modernise, certainly, but without undermining automatic recognition.

It was with that in mind, Ms McClarkin, that you just mentioned the issue of language requirements for health professionals, which should be approached with a certain amount of caution. The problem is not the directive itself. I believe this directive establishes an obligation for professionals to have a knowledge of the language of the host country, which is clearly needed if they are to properly exercise their profession. We believe that the problem stems from the implementation of this obligation for health professionals in Member States. I have two comments to make on this point. Firstly, as far as salaried professionals are concerned, I would highlight the role of employers, who should verify their employees’ language skills, and also I would point out that the best solution we have on this matter is severing the links between language skills testing and recognition of professional qualifications.

I have a fourth and final point to make: points of single contact (PSCs). For businesses and self-employed professionals, the Services Directive was a major step forward. I would also like to say that, in my visits to the Member States and my dealings with national governments, I endeavour each week to check for proper transposition and, above all, implementation of the Services Directive, which has more potential than is currently being exploited. The Services Directive represented real progress, with the establishment of PSCs in order to obtain information and complete administrative procedures electronically. Salaried workers and health professionals should benefit from those same advantages. We should therefore establish an online central information point, as you have suggested yourself, based on those PSCs, enabling professionals to carry out the recognition procedure online.

Those are the four points I wanted to mention, and may I sincerely thank you once again, Ms McClarkin, for the quality of your report, which is going to be of great use to me and my services in the coming days, before we put forward the legislative proposal on 20 December.

  Milan Cabrnoch, rapporteur for the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. – (CS) Madam President, as regards the question of the mutual recognition of qualifications, I would like to emphasise some basic points. The first one is the fact that the mutual recognition of professional qualifications promotes the free movement of people and employees, and their application in the labour markets of the EU’s Member States undoubtedly contributes to increasing employment and also to the mobility of the workforce. The legislation applied in this field no doubt needs to be reviewed, focusing, in particular, on simplifying administrative procedures and on the speedier recognition of qualifications, a reduction in the number of regulated professions and, hopefully, the better coordination of professional training. As for the professional card, which we understand rather as a specific database or electronic database, we can see two aspects of this issue. The first one would be a database of persons with a certain level of qualification and who wish to be included in such a database in order to ensure easy recognition of their qualifications in other countries; this database must be voluntary and could be organised on a national level. In contrast to this is a database of persons who, for some reason, have been prohibited from carrying out their profession. Such a database must be mandatory and uniform across the whole Community. Finally, I would like to emphasise that the European Union is not competent to make decisions on the subject of professional qualifications; it can only make proposals to Member States and create an infrastructure for the mutual recognition of qualifications between the Member States.

  Mario Pirillo, rapporteur for the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. – (IT) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the mobility of European workers is one of the pillars for full implementation of the internal market, as well as leveraging development and the economy.

It is estimated that there is a need for around a million health care professionals in Europe. This means that we need a quick and efficient system for recognising qualifications, and the professional card could facilitate this process.

However, in the health care sector, mobility must be combined with safeguarding and ensuring patient safety. This is the direction taken by the report voted for by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety for which I was rapporteur. Mobility and patient protection must be considered two sides of the same coin. Therefore, extension of the rapid reaction mechanism to the health care professions is not only commendable, but also necessary.

  Constance Le Grip, on behalf of the PPE Group. – (FR) Madam President, professional mobility and growth, professional mobility and competitiveness for our European Union: these are the terms in which today’s issue is being discussed.

The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) has expressed its support for Ms McClarkin’s report; we have made a significant contribution to drawing up the report and, of course, we support its main recommendations for greater professional mobility, and greater simplicity and efficiency in the procedures for recognising professional qualifications while protecting consumer and patient safety.

Nevertheless, the issue of increased professional mobility is being discussed mostly in terms of promoting growth. What is more, the Single Market Forum held in Kraków at the beginning of October was absolutely right on this. It reminded us that Member States should recognise the internal market’s potential to boost growth and job creation, and should act in order to remove all barriers to the completion of the single market.

The European Council meeting of 23 October also established as one of its main priorities, in order to achieve – and I quote – smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, the implementation of the 12 levers of the Single Market Act, which are 12 proposals put forward by the Commission, one of which is the recognition of professional qualifications.

It is clear to us that by increasing professional mobility, we can expect to unlock the growth potential of the internal market – our internal market – of 500 million citizens, of 500 million consumers.

Professional mobility should therefore enable us not only to guarantee the free movement – if enhanced, modernised and improved – of our compatriots within this market, but also, we hope, to achieve higher growth rates. That is why we in the PPE Group – may I stress the idea of a practical recommendation – have given exceptional support to the establishment of a voluntary professional card.

  Bernadette Vergnaud, on behalf of the S&D Group. – (FR) Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, professional mobility is a key factor for competitiveness and growth in Europe, and is an integral part of the EU 2020 strategy and the Single Market Act.

It relates to one of the fundamental rights of the EU: freedom of movement and of establishment. However, it remains limited because we are still lacking simple, clear rules for the recognition of professional qualifications. Repeated tidying-up of legislation does not hide the anachronism of some mechanisms that date back to a time when cross-border mobility was still anecdotal.

The fact is that today, 50% of young Europeans are willing to go and work in another Member State, and the new directive will need to take up that challenge. This is a major project. The lack of basic harmonisation of training, the high number of regulated professions and the complexity of the recognition process create legal uncertainty, so much so that this issue accounts for 16% of the complaints made to the SOLVIT network.

The main aim is to simplify procedures for citizens, guarantee transparent decision making and reduce delays through better cooperation between competent authorities and between Member States.

The classification of economic activities should also be reviewed, because professions and related training requirements are constantly evolving. I welcome the fact that the report focuses on the specificities of the health care professions, due to the implications in terms of patient safety, of course.

Finally, I clearly support the creation of a voluntary European professional card system. This type of card should, in particular, facilitate the steps involved and improve consumer and patient safety. Beyond that, this card will help to build a European identity and show that the single market is not only about movement of goods and people, but that it can and should be the basis for economic wealth and shared citizenship.

I therefore congratulate Ms McClarkin on this good report, which, I hope, will be widely adopted tomorrow.

  Emilie Turunen, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – (DA) Madam President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her splendid report. We in the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance are able to fully support it, along with the main idea behind this directive, which is to make it possible to make it easier for employees and the self-employed to have their qualifications recognised.

I would like to put forward five main points from the Group of the Greens that we consider to be particularly important in this report. First of all, we believe that more flexible frameworks and quicker procedures must not result in a reduction in professional skills. Secondly, the health and safety of patients and consumers must be paramount. Thirdly, further automation and harmonisation must be carried out on the basis of the wishes of the industry and professions, based on their voluntary cooperation. Fourthly, we are very much in favour of a professional card, that is to say, a form of e-card scheme which can be continually updated and which is based on the system that is already in operation, namely, the Internal Market Information system (IMI). Fifthly, we believe it is very important to focus on continued professional development and upskilling. That is something to which we in the Group of the Greens attach a great deal of importance, so I would like to thank the rapporteur, and we look forward to working on the legislation.

  Malcolm Harbour, on behalf of the ECR Group. – Madam President, it gives me great pleasure to welcome this report as the Chair of the committee, and indeed I pay tribute to all my colleagues who have worked so intensively on it, but also to thank Emma McClarkin very much for what has been a really impressive piece of work for her first report. It shows that this group in particular is deeply engaged with issues that we want to move forward on the internal market.

This report represents more than two years of work by members of my committee. Ms McClarkin has pulled together many of the issues that we have worked on in two public hearings, in an interparliamentary meeting, and indeed in one-to-one meetings with parliamentarians in different countries. It is an indication of how this Parliament should be working.

We are going to get a proposal from the Commissioner – and I welcome him very much here today and thank him for that work – but we want to feed into that, as he said, before he puts that piece of work together. We are talking about issues like smarter and better regulation in this Parliament. This is the way that committees need to be engaged in that. This is a great example. I want to thank all my colleagues for working on this.

Finally, I would say as far as the single market is concerned, that the single market is not a bloodless bureaucratic creation. It is built on the skills and talent of millions of people, and people have an entitlement under the single market rules to have their qualifications speedily and effectively recognised. We are not delivering that entitlement properly, but hopefully, as of next year, we will be able to.

  Oreste Rossi, on behalf of the EFD Group. – (IT) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the recognition of professional qualifications is an important step at a European level, as the assumption is that a person legally exercising their profession in a Member State is considered sufficiently qualified and eligible to exercise their profession, even temporarily, in any other EU Member State.

There are professions which require continuous training, and it is important that this should be accessible and verifiable at all levels in Europe. The report dedicates a certain amount of attention to the health care sector which involves doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other operators, who also need a knowledge of the language in order to avoid problems when communicating with patients.

A clause that we consider fundamental is that every Member State can legally make access to a given profession contingent on the possession of a specific professional qualification. The professional card proposed by Commissioner Barnier could make it simpler to check beforehand whether a person’s qualification can be used in any other Member State.

  Franz Obermayr (NI). – (DE) Madam President, it makes absolute sense that doctors, engineers and other specialist professionals should be able to work wherever a need exists within the internal market. The recognition of professional qualifications should not, however, go hand-in-hand with a loss of quality, so that employers need transparency, in other words, an accurate impression of training, courses attended and traineeships completed.

The market for professionals in the EU cannot be resolved completely in this way and certainly an academic rate of 40%, as provided for in the Europe 2020 strategy, is not the answer. This will lead to a downgrading of trades, curb diploma inflation and, thanks to the Bologna Process, we will find ourselves with thousands of graduates unable to find work.

Demand in the EU’s labour market is not covered by the professional qualifications of its citizens. We urgently need to take control of the shortage of specialist professionals and the brain drain, as otherwise our brightest and best will seek employment in industry in third countries.

  Danuta Jazłowiecka (PPE). – (PL) Madam President, the free movement of people and workers within the European Union is one of the key benefits of integration. When leaving the economic and financial crisis behind us, we should particularly encourage the mobility of EU citizens so that we will be able to respond more quickly and effectively to the needs of labour markets in the Member States.

Despite the fact that freedom of movement and the right to take up work in other Member States has long been a core value of the EU, citizens still face many barriers and obstacles resulting from different conditions and national legislative solutions. At present, only 2% of EU citizens work in a Member State other than that of which they are nationals. However, some 20% express a willingness to take up work in another country, which shows that we are dealing with an untapped potential.

Procedures for the recognition of professional qualifications still form an example of barriers to the freedom to take up work in another EU country. In this situation, a full revision of the current directive is required, but also the proper and rapid implementation of new rules in the Member States. New rules should be based on simplified procedures, good information, reducing the number of regulated professions and the introduction of a more automatic recognition of professional qualifications. Only in this way will we incite citizens to greater mobility and guarantee the fundamental right to take up work freely elsewhere in the EU.

The problem of recognition of professional qualifications is only one of the elements of a long-term and comprehensive strategy on mobility, which Europe needs in order to ensure sustainable growth. Eliminating all existing legal and administrative obstacles to the free movement of workers should be a priority for the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament in the coming months.

  Evelyne Gebhardt (S&D). – (DE) Madam President, the streamlining of the law in this area of mutual recognition of professional qualifications is extremely important. After all, we want policies that are in the best interests of our citizens. We all want our citizens to be able to move about freely and pursue their careers throughout the European Union.

There are still far too many problems and obstacles raised by the Member States, as well as difficulties posed by European law, and it is important that we should tackle this issue. I am grateful to Mr Barnier, however, because he has stated that the answer does not necessarily lie in the deregulation of regulated professions. Those who favour such a move still have not indicated which professions they would like to see deregulated. I would like to know: are they talking about doctors, engineers or architects? I am not sure. What I am sure about is that regulation is extremely important and necessary.

With regard to the professional card: this is something that would allow our citizens genuine freedom of movement, which is why we should not spend too much time on analysis, but instead should respond to the need expressed by those affected.

Engineers and doctors were the first to say that they needed something like this to be able to move more freely around Europe, which is, after all, a political union. It is for this reason that we must say yes to this, and do so as quickly as possible.

  Edvard Kožušník (ECR). – (CS) Madam President, first of all, let me congratulate the rapporteur and all the shadow rapporteurs for the accurate report they have prepared. Today, Europe is on the brink of stagnation at the very least, if not a recession. Coming through such a period will be extremely difficult. Today, the Union and its institutions suffer from a lack of legitimacy and the faith of its citizens in its future is rapidly draining away. The solution for the current situation is definitely not a further strengthening of the Union and the transfer of further powers to Brussels, but a return to the original concepts of European integration, and a re-launch of the internal market and the Single Market Act. Increasing the mobility of a qualified workforce and reducing the number of regulated professions is an effective solution to the current economic problems of certain Member States. For this reason, I would like to call on Member States not to be swayed by the populist lure of protectionist measures for national labour markets, but, quite the opposite, to remove existing barriers more speedily and, instead of creating national preference measures, to focus on reinforcing their own strengths in a competitive and functioning internal market.

  Gerard Batten (EFD). – Madam President, this own-initiative report on the Professional Qualifications Directive is another piece of ideologically-driven harmonisation. It calls for minimum training requirements, automatic recognition and the removing of formal obstacles to recognition of professional qualifications.

It goes on to say that ‘only if necessary should language tests be part of the recognition process and cannot be an additional border to mobility’.

Most normal people would want professional qualifications, especially medical qualifications, to be subject to maximum, not minimum, standards – and not speaking the language properly should very much be a bar to practising and mobility.

There is a case that clearly demonstrates the dangers. In 2008, a German-qualified doctor, Dr Daniel Ubani, was convicted in England of gross negligence and manslaughter after he over prescribed drugs to a patient.

This directive means we cannot discriminate against EU professionals, while we must discriminate against properly-qualified fluent English speakers from the Commonwealth. This is another good reason, if we needed one, why Britain should leave the European Union.

  María Irigoyen Pérez (S&D). – (ES) Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, people want Europe to find solutions to their problems; they want Europe to be able to bring about sustainable economic recovery and to help make regulations simpler and more flexible.

Mobility is not only a fundamental right of professionals, enshrined in the Treaties. It is also a key factor involved in modernisation of the employment market and economic development. This is why the system for recognising professional qualifications needs to be updated and adapted to the current employment situation and the demands and needs of professionals and consumers.

The Commission’s future proposal must make provision for simpler and more transparent rules for recognising professional qualifications; it must evaluate compensation measures in order to resolve current problems; make the criteria regarding linguistic skills clearer to ensure the quality of services provided and protect consumer and patient safety; and bring about greater cooperation and coordination between the competent authorities and national points of contact.

Ladies and gentlemen, Europe must put professionals and consumers at the heart of the single market. It is only in this way that we will be able to build a way out of the financial and economic crisis based on sustainable knowledge and social progress.

  Liam Aylward (ALDE). – Madam President, I, too, would like to thank the rapporteur for her work on this important report.

Given the increasing numbers of skilled young graduates who find themselves without employment, it is essential that the EU puts in place a system that allows our graduates to move and secure employment across the 27 Member States with ease. Studies show that 50% of young Europeans wish to work abroad but are hindered in doing so by a cumbersome process.

It is clear that the current system of recognising professional qualifications earned in another Member State is time consuming, complex and not employer-friendly. The harmonisation of rules concerning the exchange of information for each individual profession would be a welcome step, along with creating database systems and information-sharing processes that will assist graduates in their mobility across the EU.

In particular, I wish to draw Parliament’s and the Commission’s attention to the problems that graduates are dealing with in terms of the grey area around professional qualifications. By this, I mean compulsory probationary periods that are not being recognised across borders.

For example, I personally know of a young qualified teacher who has been awarded the academic qualification for teaching but cannot take up work as a teacher as the probationary training undertaken in the UK is not recognised in Ireland. However, her counterparts have no problem qualifying in the UK and completing their probationary training in Ireland.

This administrative contradiction is placing many teaching graduates in limbo. Their professional qualifications are recognised, but they still cannot take up employment as they cannot get registered.

The lack of equivalence of standards here is causing real problems for graduates and requires immediate action from the Member States and the Commission in order to stop them being penalised for being mobile and taking up training opportunities in other Member States.

Graduates should not be left in limbo, and measures need to be implemented without delay to ensure that they have access to a truly internal market and that the Professional Qualifications Directive is broad enough to cover all aspects of qualification.

  Elżbieta Katarzyna Łukacijewska (PPE). – (PL) Madam President, I very much wish to congratulate the rapporteur, because today’s debate on the recognition of professional qualifications meets the expectations of EU citizens. Making it possible for citizens to have their qualifications entitling them to pursue a particular profession or activity recognised in a Member State other than the one in which the qualifications were obtained and to enjoy the benefits of Europe’s competitive internal market are an important factor in stimulating economic growth in the EU and creating new jobs.

If we are speaking about the free movement of people and goods and about the internal market, today’s report showing the need for the European Commission to draw up appropriate provisions provides important support for thousands of young people who express a desire to work in another EU country. We can only wish, especially for all the citizens of the EU, that the need for legal solutions will be met as quickly as possible. I now have a question for the Commissioner: when can the people of Europe expect the implementation of these appropriate provisions?

  Katarína Neveďalová (S&D). – (SK) Madam President, the mobility of employees and students within the boundaries of the European Union is an extremely important freedom – one of the four basic freedoms that we have in the EU. The recognition of professional qualifications – either for further education or for finding a job on the labour market beyond the borders of one’s home land – is certainly a priority in this context. We have to enable professionals to look for work, wherever in the Union that work may be.

However, the implementation of this directive in practice has shown where this situation is more complex and where the problems of recognising qualifications and diplomas persist. And, of course, this has to be changed.

Thus, as a member of the Committee on Education, which has handled this issue many times within the framework of the agenda for the policy on youth education, I welcome the initiative of the European Commission to modernise this directive and I would certainly like to express my thanks to our rapporteur for the high-quality report which precisely identifies the problems in recognising qualifications in everyday life and, of course, pays sufficient attention to problematic professions and proposes specific solutions.

Besides this, I would like to emphasise, just like many of my colleagues before me, the importance of the introduction of a professional certificate card in close connection with the internal market information system.

  Vicky Ford (ECR). – Madam President, I speak tonight as the daughter of two doctors, the sister of a doctor and the wife of another doctor. For generations, the UK has welcomed and valued doctors from many countries. However, the directive is not as successful as the Commissioner would like us to believe. Colleagues, please consider the tragic death of one of my constituents, Mr David Gray. He was killed by a doctor. The doctor did not recognise the drug he took from the standard medicine bag and administered a lethal dose.

A tragedy like this undermines confidence in the very many thousands of excellent doctors from many different countries we have working in our country and across the EU. All doctors need to prove to the national regulator that they have not only academic qualifications but also have language and communications skills, as well as familiarity with local practices, and the EU directive must be amended to allow this.

Part of recognising professional qualifications is also recognising disqualifications. The ‘alert’ mechanism will help, but we must be able to share concerns as well as judgments. I welcome the report but would have liked to see it go further. Patient safety must come before politicians.

  Konstantinos Poupakis (PPE). – (EL) Madam President, in the current recession, improving the mobility of workers between EU Member States will help considerably in combating the employment crisis for the long-term unemployed and categories most at risk of unemployment and, at the same time, will help to bring about a more general and more competitive internal market.

What we need in this context is to modernise the system for recognising professional qualifications by linking formal education with non-formal practical learning, once skills have been determined, evaluated and recognised within it. This will help people from low-income brackets who, for economic and social reasons, do not have the facility to study or access to the formal education system.

These policies will, I believe, help to develop and promote knowledge, combat unemployment and poverty, and safeguard the social cohesion that we sorely need today.

  Evelyn Regner (S&D). – (DE) Madam President, the mutual recognition of professional qualifications is of paramount importance in achieving free movement for workers within Europe. As a corollary, failure to recognise professional qualifications is often a strategic decision, namely a move to keep wages as low as possible, drawing a veil over the applicability of collective wage agreements in order to cover up the principle that the same wage should or must be paid for the same work at the same location.

I come from the eastern part of Austria. A large number of cross-border commuters from Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic work there, many of them finding that their often excellent qualifications are not recognised. This results in a ‘lose-lose’ situation for all workers, namely, for those who come to Austria with excellent skills, but whose qualifications are not recognised, and, on the other hand, for Austrian workers, who naturally find themselves under corresponding pressure. This means that the principles that the report now pursues – transparency, simplified recognition processes and a voluntary professional card – are a positive development in the final analysis. I hope that the Commissioner will take up these proposals in order to take control of the problems I have described.

  Christa Klaß (PPE). – (DE) Madam President, Mr Barnier, we need to improve our effectiveness in deploying skilled staff where they are needed. It must be made easier for people to find out which authority is responsible for recognising a particular professional qualification. We need a faster, simpler recognition procedure. We cannot have a situation where an applicant has to wait several months for his professional qualifications to be recognised. It is only right that the candidate’s knowledge of the language in which he or she is to work should be tested. This is particularly important in the health sector and the associated caring professions.

The same standards for job descriptions will certainly simplify mutual recognition. A voluntary professional card and skills passport can be useful in this regard. They also provide information about the skills learned. This type of documentation can also indicate which skills a candidate still lacks. Clearly defined follow-up checks should be possible to ensure that standards are maintained and that a professional qualification can be recognised in another Member State.

  Silvia-Adriana Ţicău (S&D). – (RO) Madam President, the application of Directive 2005/36/EC on the recognition of professional qualifications is essential for professional mobility and a key factor for the economic and social development of the EU. Since 2007, some 100 000 decisions have been made on recognition under the directive, making mobility possible for 85 000 professionals. However, more than 16% of SOLVIT cases in 2010 related to recognition of professional qualifications. Labour market developments require greater transparency, simplification and flexibility of the rules on the recognition of professional qualifications.

Regular updating of the requirements for initial training, recognition of experience and continuous professional development are essential to the harmonisation of training. The right to obtain employment or provide services in another Member State is a fundamental right under the Treaties and constitutes a concrete example of how citizens can benefit from the single market. I wish to take this opportunity to ask once again that the barriers to the free movement of workers from Romania and Bulgaria be lifted.

  Ilda Figueiredo (GUE/NGL). – (PT) Madam President, this debate has shown that this question is more complex than at first it appears to be, and it is becoming increasingly so with rising unemployment in certain Member States, which puts pressure on people, especially the young, to take work wherever it is available.

From now on, recognition of professional qualifications must not be allowed to jeopardise the rights of consumers and service users, a matter of particular concern in such areas as health, education and so forth. Above all, however, we must encourage and support the creation of jobs with rights in all Member States, so that people really can work wherever they want to and are not obliged to leave their own country just because they have no work there. That is the central issue.

  Michel Barnier, Member of the Commission. – (FR) Madam President, a moment ago, Ms Figueiredo talked about ‘creating employment’, as did Ms Le Grip earlier, and I noticed that Ms Łukacijewska and Ms Jazłowiecka mentioned growth.

It is precisely because we are thinking in terms of the Single Market Act – which is an agenda for renewed growth – and because mobility is one of the tools for the new growth our citizens need, that we are addressing the issue of professional qualifications today.

I would first of all like to thank you, and then speak about the professional card, which many of you have mentioned and which is a tool I very much believe in. Indeed, in the first few days after I was appointed, many of you drew my attention to this option. A voluntary card for professionals, and a compulsory card for the national authorities: if we succeed, this will certainly result in simplification, as Ms Vergnaud called it, in a shorter time frame and, above all, in the right to more efficient and faster processing for professionals thanks to the expertise of the internal market information system (IMI). I would say to Ms Regner and Ms Klass, who mentioned objectivity and transparency, that through this system, we will be able, I believe, to achieve greater efficiency, speed and also transparency and objectivity as regards professionals’ real qualifications.

I would say to Mr Pirillo that it will also mean that health professionals become mobile more quickly, while the right to safety for patients and those who call on health professionals will be protected. Ms Turunen also mentioned this issue of citizens’ right to safety.

Mr Cabrnoch and Mr Aylward mentioned continuous training. Indeed, we are going to suggest that Member States should have to at least provide an update on what they are doing in the area of continuous training.

Mr Obermayr brought up an important point when he talked about the brain drain. I think that, in countries that are having more trouble than others, mobility could be problematic, and that is why, Mr Obermayr, we need to establish a framework for cooperation and a context for this issue of mobility and the recognition of professional qualifications. May I say that I believe we need more Europe rather than less Europe on this matter. That is my conviction.

Mr Batten, to whom I would say that this is not an ideological document, mentioned – as did Ms Ford – an unusual case involving a ban, with which we are all familiar. Without going into detail, I would just like to point out that the directive contains very clear rules on language skills, particularly for doctors, and Member States must therefore be objective and rigorous in using the tools made available by this directive in order to implement measures and verify people’s skills and ability, even if, in this specific case involving a ban, there was no clear link between the problem that arose and the testing of language knowledge.

In any case, I would like to say to Ms Vergnaud, who said that mobility is not anecdotal, and to Mr Harbour, that, indeed, it is not anecdotal. It is a major issue within the single market, which is our shared space for economic and social coexistence, and I believe that by establishing a solid framework and proper verification, by facilitating the full recognition of qualifications with the tools we have discussed, and by making use of the Internet, we will achieve higher growth levels.

Finally, Ms Gebhardt, Mr Harbour, Ms McClarkin herself, Mr Kožušník and Ms Irigoyen Pérez raised the issue of regulated professions and the number thereof, as well as the problem of potentially reducing those professions. I would like to restate my conviction. The issue is not whether the number of regulated professions is too high or not high enough, but whether or not regulation, in countries with very numerous or very strict regulations for these professions, constitutes a barrier that is disproportionate to the correct functioning of the single market.

I plan to bring greater transparency to this debate by asking all Member States to notify all the professions they regulate and to submit to an objective assessment of the reasons why they believe this type of regulation to be necessary and proportionate. After receiving their responses, we will carry out a benchmarking process to compare all the results of this exercise. I believe the Professional Qualifications Directive already guarantees professional mobility between Member States that regulate and those that do not regulate a specific profession. It provides solutions to ensure the equivalence of qualifications, which is a proposal we shall table on the basis of the clarification provided by your report.

I will conclude, Ms McClarkin, by sincerely thanking you and all those who worked with you, and by reiterating the importance of the report you have presented today. It will make a useful contribution to the Commission’s legislative proposal of 20 December.

  Emma McClarkin, rapporteur. – Madam President, we find ourselves in an extraordinary economic crisis and it is really time for the EU to focus on its real priorities. Delivery of the single market is absolutely key to that, and free movement of workers is a fundamental building block of that single market.

Enhancing mobility for professionals will boost economic growth, so simplification and speeding up of processes must be our goal.

We need to increase confidence in recognition processes. Part of that will be looking at the language question. As the report actually calls for a revision of the existing requirements by providing competent authorities with the flexibility to ascertain and test the language skills of professionals, it will alleviate that problem. The alert mechanism will also help make sure that cases such as Dr Ubani do not happen again.

We need to balance the needs of professionals against those of patients and consumers alike, easing recognition and facilitating mobility whilst not compromising the standards of service and safety for our citizens.

I look forward to the Commission’s proposal. I hope you take on the concerns and the calls from Parliament in the report. We must get this right because it is time to deliver.

  President. – The debate is closed.

The vote will take place at 12.00 on Tuesday, 15 November 2011.

Written statements (Rule 149)

  Vilija Blinkevičiūtė (S&D), in writing. – (LT) With the ever-increasing movement of highly skilled persons and workers in Europe, it is very important to guarantee recognition of workers’ professional skills and to reduce to a minimum barriers that hinder use of the right to skilled jobs. We also urgently need to establish a proper system in the European Union for the validation of professional skills so that highly skilled workers and trained professionals are not forced to do unskilled work because otherwise, such workers lose their skills, experience and qualifications in the long term. I would like to draw attention to the fact that dialogue and exchanges of information within each individual profession must be enhanced and that cooperation between the competent authorities and national contact points (NCPs) must be improved, at both national and Community level. The European Commission should support networks of competent authorities and professional bodies for the most mobile professions for the purposes of exchanging general information about national processes and education requirements, sharing best practice and investigating possibilities for deeper cooperation, such as common platforms. In turn, the Member States should improve the efficiency of public authorities in providing information both about workers’ rights and about procedures for the recognition of professional qualifications in order to guarantee workers’ rights and stop the exploitation of workers.

  Cristian Silviu Buşoi (ALDE), in writing. – (RO) Modernising procedures for the recognition of professional qualifications and making them more efficient are vital to increasing the mobility of Europeans. Labour market flexibility will also lead to a better functioning of the single market and economic unity as a whole. This report deals with the key problems for the future reform of the directive. An effort must be made to simplify procedures, in particular, as regards the general system of recognition. I also consider it appropriate to evaluate the implementation and relevance of compensation measures and to adopt optional guidelines for a more uniform approach to the implementation of such measures. Temporary mobility must be supported by clarifying the concept and abolishing the system of prior declaration in cases where service providers accompany a consumer to another Member State without having any contact with local consumers. We could also explore the possibility of coordinating our education systems with a view to achieving a higher degree of harmonisation in the future and being able to extend the system of automatic recognition to other professions as well. Last but not least, voluntary professional cards may be an effective instrument for speeding up the recognition of qualifications but should be introduced only where they add real value to the current system.

  Vasilica Viorica Dăncilă (S&D), in writing. – (RO) Facilitating the recognition of professional qualifications at European level is a measure that will allow for faster professional integration of young people in the EU labour market. I welcome the proposal on the creation of networks of competent authorities and professional bodies for the most mobile professions and on the continuous exchange of information on educational programmes in order to enhance the credibility of diplomas between Member States, but also to improve the language skills of young people wishing to work in another Member State. Moreover, the introduction of the professional card enabling the holder’s professional training to be recognised at European level will also reduce bureaucratic obstacles and enable Europeans to enjoy greater mobility on the labour market. I also hope that cross-border mobility will be improved as a means of stimulating economic growth and competitiveness within the Union.

  Iosif Matula (PPE), in writing. – (RO) The recognition of diplomas and professional qualifications at EU level, as regulated by the 2005 Directive (2005/36/EC), is particularly important both for old Member States and citizens of the new ones, such as my country of Romania. Freedom of movement is one of the essential rights of membership of the Union, and changing demographics will make the mobility across the European Union increasingly important. At present, only a few professions are regulated at Community level, while the rest are subject to costly and lengthy equivalence procedures, ranging from testing to the requirement of further studies. Bearing in mind that educational reforms are facilitating the process of recognising qualifications at European level through the European Qualifications Framework and the Bologna process, I believe that the list of professions regulated at EU level should be extended. The procedures for recognising diplomas and professional qualifications should also be simplified and accelerated, and this process should be made more transparent. In this context, we should also deal with the problem of the recognition of qualifications of third-country nationals, who should not take priority over citizens of the Member States. I also believe that states should accept all categories of workers on the labour market and not just those who are highly qualified, which leads to the phenomenon of the so-called brain drain.

  Joanna Katarzyna Skrzydlewska (PPE), in writing. – (PL) Making it easier for skilled workers to work freely throughout the EU is not only a right enshrined in the Treaties resulting from the nature of the single market. It is, above all, an economic necessity which should be implemented as soon as possible given that, by the end of 2020, we will need up to 16 million highly qualified professionals. In order for the mobility of these workers to lead to genuine economic recovery, we must make it easier for them to take up work and set up business in the country of their choice where there is indeed a need for their knowledge and skills. To this end, national laws that create unnecessary barriers and difficulties must be revised. It is my conviction that harmonisation of rules in the field of vocational training at European level could be a good solution, although I realise that this would be complicated. Also not without significance is easy access to relevant information for those interested. I therefore urge the European Commission to consolidate sources of information already available so that people wishing to take up an activity in a country other than their country of origin have access in their own language to the necessary documents and information on the appropriate branch organisations.

  Jutta Steinruck (S&D), in writing. – (DE) The Professional Qualifications Directive is a key element in the integration of the labour market and an important step in achieving equal opportunities in European society. Many Member States have not yet implemented the directive and there are still far too many problems with recognition. This is also evident in the document from the Commission on which this own-initiative report is based. I welcome this report whole heartedly because it paves the way for the position the European Parliament is to adopt in relation to the promised revised directive at the beginning of next year. From an employment policy perspective, I would once again emphasise that we need to put an end quickly to the sometimes unfair practices found in the Member States. We cannot have a situation where, in many cases, qualifications are not recognised in order to keep wage costs low. This is clearly a problem of misalignment and is causing difficulties for immigrant job-seekers. This not only constitutes an infringement of the principle of equality, but also significantly restricts mobility within the workforce. The European Parliament needs to take a clear line on this in the forthcoming revision of the directive. I look forward to continued excellent cooperation.

18. One-minute speeches (Rule 150)

  President. – The next item is one-minute speeches on matters of political importance.

  Csaba Sógor (PPE). – (HU) Madam President, I would like to draw attention to an issue that has already been raised in the United States’ legislature, and which I therefore think we, too, should address. The issue I am referring to is that of Romania and the restitution of property nationalised under the Communist dictatorship. In the case of one property already restored to its former owners – a property incidentally belonging to a minority church – a trial is currently under way in Romania in which the accused are none other than the former members of the national restitution committee, Secretary of State Mr Attila Markó and his colleagues, who approved the restitution of this property a few years ago in accordance with the legislation then in force and in line with their official duties. The outcome of this court case could affect the entire restitution process in Romania, as it may call into question the restoration of church property to its rightful owners. I ask the European Parliament and you, Madam President, to follow developments in this case closely, as the European Union expects every Member State to abide by the rule of law. The next hearing in this trial is due to take place tomorrow. The only way this trial can end fairly is if these unfounded charges are dropped.

  Gilles Pargneaux (S&D). – (FR) Madam President, Commissioner, I should like to draw the European Commission’s attention to the situation of the SeaFrance company, with which Mr Barnier is presumably very familiar.

This is a painful situation for us. Today, 880 jobs are under threat, and 220 fixed-term positions have just been added to that number. The European Commission has rejected the French Government’s plan for the national railway operator, SNCF, to provide a EUR 100 million loan for the recapitalisation of SeaFrance.

The French Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry today indicated that France will appeal against the European Commission’s recent decision at the General Court of the European Union.

In my question, I was simply asking the European Commission if it would care to soften its policy in order to relax the rules on aid, so as to protect what is a very important company in economic terms.

  Ramon Tremosa i Balcells (ALDE). – Madam President, Spain, with Romania, is the only country in the EU that leaves no room for competition on airport management. In 2008, the Catalan Government built an airport in Lleida, which does not belong to the Spanish centralised network of AENA.

Companies from Russia and the UK have shown an interest in flying directly to Lleida airport, which would give thousands of tourists direct access to skiing in the Pyrenees this winter. However, as Russia and the UK are outside the Schengen zone, approval for these flights has to be given by the Spanish Government. The Catalan Government has been asking the Socialist Spanish Government for approval of these flights since 2010, but this authorisation has not yet arrived.

The Commission should act immediately to stop this discrimination against the Catalan airport of Lleida. No airport should be discriminated against because of the identity of its managers.

  Michail Tremopoulos (Verts/ALE). – (EL) Madam President, before the new government assumed office in Greece, Commissioner Rehn criticised the decision by Mr Papandreou to hold a referendum and asked for written explanations. Also, Ms Merkel, Mr Sarkozy and the IMF dictated the date for and the question to be asked in the referendum and prevented elections from being held.

The referendum was cancelled following severe political reaction in Greece and in order to save Greece’s European prospects. However, Mr Papandreou was forced to resign, partly due to the threat that the sixth tranche would not be paid, even though that tranche was expressly agreed at the summit on 26 October 2011 and even though the Greek people have made extreme sacrifices. Even though Mr Papandreou won his vote of confidence, he was forced to resign as prime minister and now the government includes extreme right-wing politicians. Similar events have taken place in Italy.

Regardless of the tactics applied by Mr Papandreou, the Commission has pushed Europe’s credentials beyond the limit. We also wonder if the serious crisis in Europe has perhaps caused certain political and economic ‘elites’ to espouse the view that, under certain circumstances, democracy is a superfluous luxury. We do not belong to the old political system; however, every society’s liberation from it is a matter for its own citizens.

  Marina Yannakoudakis (ECR). – Madam President, I would like to congratulate my home constituency of London on having been selected to host the 2017 World Athletics Championships. I am sure Members are aware that the Olympic Games are being held in London next year. Hosting two world class sporting events in the next five years is good news, not only for London and the UK, but also for Europe. I am proud of my city and of my country.

As such, I cringe at proposals to include the EU flag on sportsmen’s national shirts. When the British athletes proudly mount the podium to receive their gold medals, the only flag I want to see is the Union Jack. I hope other Member States will also have enough pride in their countries to feel the same way. We look forward to hosting both events and invite you to join us in London.

  João Ferreira (GUE/NGL). – (PT) Madam President, the steadfast and vigorous struggle by the workers and the Portuguese people is a significant response to the aggressive agenda of the European Union, the IMF and the IMF’s Portuguese toadies. What is more, that response ought to be echoed here in this Parliament, since it is this Parliament that underwrites many of the measures which this aggressive agenda entails.

The general strike planned for 24 November will be a high point in this struggle, a culmination of the various demonstrations, protests and sector-wide stoppages of these past days. On Saturday, more than 180 000 public service workers took to the streets of Lisbon. In the fields of education, health care, transport, public security and defence, and out in the countryside too, workers, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs and ordinary people swelled an enormous tide of protest against generalised impoverishment, against robbery from workers and pensioners, and against the plundering of national resources.

The general strike on the 24th will not mark an end to this struggle, but will move it to a higher level, since it is also a struggle in defence of democracy: democracy which is gravely mutilated and deformed when a people is deprived of the basic means for deciding its own fate and determining its collective future, as is happening under the iniquitous privatisation programme constituted by this troika’s aggression pact.

  Gerard Batten (EFD). – Madam President, in recent months, England has seen a series of despicable crimes: memorial plaques recording the names of the heroic dead of two world wars are being systematically stolen for their scrap metal value. Decent English people wonder how these revered monuments which have stood safely in cities, towns and villages for generations have become the targets for thieves.

Today’s Daily Express reports that the police believe that these crimes are predominantly carried out by Romanian gangs. The EU’s open door policy is directly to blame; we do not just get the decent, honest, hard-working migrants that we might choose. We are forced to take the lowest forms of criminal life merely because they are EU citizens. Membership of the EU is destroying my country. What more revolting proof of that could there be than the melting down for scrap of the monuments to those who gave their lives so we could be free.

IN THE CHAIR: LIBOR ROUČEK
Vice-President

  Martin Ehrenhauser (NI). – (DE) Mr President, the history of the European Union is one of many, many poor compromises. These compromises have given rise to a very large number of deficiencies. When I demonstrated against the Treaty of Lisbon outside the Austrian cabinet offices in Vienna in 2008, my argument was that this Treaty cemented these deficiencies in place for years, if not decades, to come. This is precisely what has happened, as we can now see from the debate on treaty change.

This is not the moment for Schadenfreude, however. We need to see to it that this crisis is used to achieve more deep-seated change. For this reason, I am saying a clear and resounding yes to a European convention, yes to a convention that is directly elected by our citizens, yes to a right of initiative for the European Parliament, yes to a Court of Justice with responsibility for subsidiarity, simply yes to more democracy and, above all, yes to referenda on this result.

  László Surján (PPE). – (HU) Mr President, I do not wish to complain, but to share my joy with everyone present here. In 2008, the European Parliament awarded the Charlemagne Youth Prize for the first time, and that year it was won by a Hungarian foundation, the Rákóczi Foundation, which began its activities back in the early 90s, inviting young people from Ukraine, Slovakia, Romania and Serbia for around three weeks to learn about Hungary, about history, and about human rights. And these three weeks are not just a one-off meeting for these young people; the friendships they develop often lead to spontaneous get-togethers over the years afterwards. This year, they demonstrated that they know what European thinking is about: this year, the European Year of Volunteering, more than one hundred young people travelled to a small Serbian village and set about renovating the village playing fields, painting the seating and the fences. My view is: you can say nice words about the idea of Europe, and you can take action. These youngsters have set us an example.

  Derek Vaughan (S&D). – Mr President, I wish to speak on the role of credit rating agencies. These unaccountable agencies have much to answer for in the current crisis. Every time they decide to downgrade a Member State’s rating, it makes borrowing more expensive, this in turn making the debt crisis worse and calls for austerity measures even louder.

And they even make mistakes, as they recently did in France when they mistakenly downgraded that country’s rating. This could, of course, have had serious consequences.

I am therefore pleased that the Commission is now looking at new rules for these agencies. I hope this look includes the greater regulation of existing agencies and even perhaps involves establishing a new independent agency – one which will be trusted and listened to.

  Andrea Zanoni (ALDE). – (IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the continent of Europe is extremely rich in fresh water but risks becoming poor in drinking water. This is a paradox caused by the rising number of cases of water table pollution.

In my region of Veneto, in Italy, for example, authorisation has been given over the last 50 years for quarrying below the water table and landfill sites that have resulted in serious pollution of the water table, groundwater and wells for drinking water. In May of this year, the Veneto Regional Environmental Protection Agency found mercury poisoning in over 100 wells located in various municipalities in the province of Treviso.

Therefore, we need to take prompt action to immediately unlock the crucial Soil Directive, which was adopted at first reading by the European Parliament in 2007 but has remained blocked by the Council. The directive makes it mandatory to register and reclaim contaminated sites, which would solve the problem of water table pollution.

  Margrete Auken (Verts/ALE). – (DA) Mr President, I would like to draw everyone’s attention to the fact that the Israeli Government and Parliament, the Knesset, are now in the process of adopting some of the laws that we have criticised on numerous occasions, not only here in Parliament, but also in the Commission and the Council, namely, those laws which lay waste to democracy and the freedom of expression. They want to set a very stringent ceiling on public aid, that is to say, government aid, for example, for B’Tselem and other human rights organisations. They will be allowed to receive a maximum of ILS 20 000, the equivalent of just a few thousand euro, a year. That is tantamount to stopping them completely.

I am very grateful for the fact that the Commission has protested. Our ambassador in Tel Aviv spoke out very clearly against this last Thursday, but still nothing is happening. Israel is merely continuing because it is not encountering any real opposition. I would therefore very strongly urge the Council and the Commission to consider whether we should not now start to look at the privileged partnerships between Israel and the EU. It cannot be right for us to accept the destruction of the freedom of expression in this way in Israel – and certainly not from those who have been our best partners for a long time. We need to do more than simply get angry and say ‘Shame on you!’ and ‘You must not do that!’ This is a disaster, and not only for the freedom of expression and democracy, but, in reality, for Israel’s future as well.

  Paweł Robert Kowal (ECR). – (PL) Mr President, I have issued an appeal which is circulating in the European Parliament and has already been signed by several dozen Members on the matter of Asia Noreen – a Christian who is facing death. In the village of Itanwali in Pakistan, Asia Noreen belongs to a religious minority and has been sentenced to death, and now there is a danger that the sentence will be implemented. Those close to her are also at risk.

I would again appeal to the High Representative and to the European Parliament to act more decisively and effectively. It is a measure of our credibility as defenders of human rights; we must resolutely exert diplomatic pressure to ensure that Christians are not persecuted for their religion or threatened with death. I reiterate my appeal, stressing that the authority of this House is at stake.

  Oreste Rossi (EFD). – (IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Italian has been an official language of the European Union since the first EU regulation in 1958, and was confirmed as such in the Treaty of Rome. So why do offices of the European Parliament often fail to comply with the Treaty by not using Italian in deeds, documents, communications and simultaneous translations, leading to comprehension difficulties and restricting the ability to express themselves among those who wish to use it? Translation is only available into English also at shadow meetings, trialogues and meetings of delegations and parliamentary missions, and sometimes also at meetings of Committee coordinators.

I have nothing against the British, but I have no intention of becoming colonised by them. I am here to defend and protect the interests of my people, and in accordance with the motto of the European Union ‘United in diversity’, I expect to be able to communicate in my own language. Unless the fundamental principles of the European Union, including the principle of equal standing of the official languages, are respected in this Parliament and all of its bodies and offices, I will present an appeal to the Court of Justice to put an end to this supranational standardisation that the strong powers wish to impose on Europe.

  Nicole Sinclaire (NI). – Mr President, as this year draws to a close, we can look back at a year that started off with democracy blooming across North Africa. However, the EU seems to be going in the opposite direction. First of all, we had a Greek Prime Minister promising his people a referendum on the severe economic measures imposed on his country. He trusted the judgment of his electorate, but he was banished for being too democratic and threatened by a German leader: déjà vu.

Now we have the grotesque sight of an unelected person – a former EU Commissioner, Mario Monti, who has not been elected to anything in his life – given a lifetime seat and appointed Italian Prime Minister. Is this the future of Europe? Unelected government by technocrats? You no longer trust the people of Europe, for you know they do not trust you and they have seen through this scam. The Arab Spring has given way to a nasty, bitter EU winter.

  Gabriel Mato Adrover (PPE). – (ES) Mr President, much has been said over recent days about the volcano on the island of El Hierro, in the Canary Islands.

I was there last Friday and experienced for myself, along with the people of El Hierro, an earthquake measuring 4.6 on the Richter scale. I can assure you that it was not a pleasant situation to be in.

However, it was even more unpleasant to see the situation in which the thousands of inhabitants of this small and very European island find themselves, with their lives determined by the volcano and continuous seismic activity.

The tunnel linking the two main cities on the island is closed, people cannot go out to fish, and businesses are being closed down. People are seeing a major crisis grow to terrible proportions, and they can do nothing but wait.

This wait is unsustainable from an economic perspective. Fishermen, farmers, small business owners, hoteliers and society as a whole all urgently need Europe’s assistance and economic support in order to tackle not only the present situation, but also an uncertain future.

The European Union must be where it is needed. That place today, more than ever, is the island of El Hierro.

  Katarína Neveďalová (S&D). – (SK) Mr President, despite the fact that the European Union is one of the richest regions in the world, there are 116 million people living here at risk of poverty and many others are at the edge of the social safety net and are living in conditions of severe material deprivation and cannot afford the basic goods which are essential for a decent life in Europe.

This, of course, cannot be compatible with European values of justice and solidarity. It is a concrete reflection of the violation of human rights of many European people and tangible proof of the enormous extent of injustice.

The crisis which is expected to materialise in the forthcoming period will further exacerbate this problem. I would therefore like to call on all Member States to vote against the restrictive measures in the social insurance and social assistance system, which mainly infringe the rights of the most vulnerable groups and remove a number of safeguards against social risks. The right to a decent job, the category of the minimum wage and minimum salary are the achievements of modern society, of which we can be proud and for which we have long been fighting for in Europe. This also serves as a model in many other parts of the world. We should therefore not allow anybody to deprive us of them.

  Theodoros Skylakakis (ALDE). – (EL) Mr President, we now have a government in Greece that enjoys broad support in parliament and among the public. Despite the difficulties, the vast majority of Greeks have demonstrated that they are in favour of staying in the euro and applying an effective reform programme. However, the economic policy applied needs to be adjusted accordingly and that is a job both for the new government and for the European authorities. The troika needs to address weaknesses in the programme being applied in connection with unworkable denationalisation plans, the social impact of unemployment, which is far worse than anticipated, and the freeze on economic activity as a result of the total lack of liquidity.

All this can be done within the framework of current fiscal targets using the following instruments: spending cuts, NSRF funds and funds to recapitalise the banks.

  Francesco Enrico Speroni (EFD). – (IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, many of us have raised extremely important and serious issues recently. Mine is neither, but I think it still merits some attention.

The parliamentary administration office has refused to pay a EUR 12 taxi receipt simply because it was written in what they considered to be a not very legible way. I believe that if certain services, with reference to the European Union in general, had checked the accounts of certain countries better, rather than receipts for EUR 12, we would not be in the crisis that we are all having to suffer.

  Franz Obermayr (NI). – (DE) Mr President, amidst all the naïve euphoria over the Arab Spring, the EU needs to open its eyes and do something about the continued violent attacks on Coptic Christians. There are frequent bloody and murderous incidents in Egypt, right on Europe’s doorstep. We need to act quickly on this. To put it quite plainly, an EU delegation needs to be appointed that will register, document and publish data on these groundless attacks, linking development aid and bilateral trade agreements to respect for religious freedom. Military aid from the EU must never be used to perpetrate acts of violence against civilians. This is something that needs to be evaluated and aid should be halted if necessary.

The EU is urgently called upon to ensure that the so-called Arab Spring in countries like Egypt, Tunisia, and so on should actually give birth to new democracies in which the principles of tolerance, human rights and the rule of law are established.

  Ágnes Hankiss (PPE). – (HU) Mr President, the report recently produced and published by the American Secret Service draws the attention of the US Congress to the growing dangers of government and industrial espionage. The Internet has been shown to have greatly multiplied the opportunities and risks of cyber espionage aimed at achieving an economic or political advantage, an activity which is increasingly gaining ground compared to traditional intelligence gathering. The sad fact is that Europe is lagging years behind the USA, China and Russia in terms of cyber security, whereas, for example, Russian intelligence possesses a highly sophisticated set of cyber tools. It would be important, therefore, to assess and define more clearly in the EU Internal Security Strategy than has been the case up to now what defence capabilities we possess against attacks of this sort. Likewise, in the interests of prevention and defence, we cannot delay any longer in giving Europol clear responsibilities and capabilities to tackle Internet-based crime.

  Ioan Enciu (S&D). – (RO) Mr President, during the last part-session, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the mobility of workers in the European Union to which I personally introduced an amendment requesting the abolition of employment restrictions on citizens of Romania and Bulgaria by the end of this year. However, this has little chance of being achieved. Unfortunately, the European Commission showed at the very least indifference regarding this excessive and unjustified restriction on the freedom of movement of workers when it approved new restrictions imposed by Spain, and has not reacted at all to the decision to extend the restrictions adopted by ten other states.

It is also regrettable – and I say this for the second time in a part-session – that, although I sent a written question on the subject to the Commission exactly two months ago, I still have not received a reply.

I therefore take this opportunity to call for an urgent response from the Commission and for more interest and involvement in protecting the fundamental rights of European citizens from Romania and Bulgaria.

  Filiz Hakaeva Hyusmenova (ALDE). – (BG) Mr President, many people will say that the important decisions currently being taken in the European Union are to do with the crisis. They have good reason for saying this. However, we should not forget that one of the causes of it is non-compliance with rules. Breaking rules has a long-term and even unforeseeable impact. This is why we must follow them not only when it comes to finances and the economy.

This is why I am alarmed that breaching the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union meant that many citizens were deprived of the right to take part in the recent elections in Bulgaria. People who met the requirements were not able to vote because they were excluded without any reason from the electoral rolls. This situation was acknowledged publicly by a number of administrative bodies, but it is not clear even now who was responsible for these blunders. Perhaps this was done intentionally and will not result in any accusation or punishment.

We must call from this Chamber for all the facts to be made transparent and for prompt measures to be taken against the offenders in defence of civil rights.

  Slavi Binev (NI). – (BG) Mr President, it is with huge regret that it is only from this Chamber that I can tell the public about the totalitarian way in which the Republic of Bulgaria is being governed.

The prime minister has established a model of government based on total control of the media and freedom of speech. Anyone who holds different views to him is compromised and brutally suppressed. The media are censored and information is filtered in a draconian manner. Only events which are favourable to those in power are covered.

Any other events are not reported and Bulgarian citizens therefore remain completely unaware of them. The prime minister acts arrogantly, like someone who thinks that the law and morals do not apply to him. He decides everything on his own, which includes him quite openly telling private individuals where to invest their money so as to gain his goodwill.

The need is clearly forming in Bulgaria for an ‘Arab Spring’. I firmly believe that none of us want the Hugo Chávez style of government in the European Union. Such a method of government is totally unacceptable for a democratic country in the 21st century, a Member State of the European Union at that.

Thank you for giving me your time and attention. I think that it is now time for us to show European citizens that everyone is equal before Europe’s laws and our voice cannot be stifled in this House.

  Czesław Adam Siekierski (PPE). – (PL) Mr President, almost halfway through the term of this European Parliament, we should have the courage to ask ourselves where Europe is going, to what extent are we able to realise the ambitious goals of the Europe 2020 strategy, and whether we see any real prospect of a prolonged exit from the financial crisis affecting many EU Member States. Let us remember that, in times of instability and a sense that there is a risk that we might not be able to meet the basic needs of life, populist social movements often come to the fore proclaiming extremist slogans of change. We must not ignore the ‘outraged movement’, which also takes the form of idealistic youth opposition devoid of any real prospect of creative development or decent work, but which, in future, might become the nucleus of a major political force, but with what kind of face?

We cannot remain silent about the lack of accountability on the part of politicians who have forced us to live on credit and at the expense of future generations by making unrealistic promises in exchange for staying in power, and even seeking to hide or modify the real situation. Although known for its accuracy, the Brussels administration did not effectively monitor individual Member States and accepted a dangerous increase in budget deficits and debt.

  Alexander Mirsky (S&D). – (LV) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is a disease called sclerosis, where there is no pain but every day brings news. I recall that some years ago, there was a slogan ‘One people, one Reich, one Führer’. We all know how that ended. Today, however, there are government ministers in Latvia, who cast their vote unconstitutionally when it came to the question of allocating funding to collecting signatures in order to award official language status to the Russian language. Today, there are ministers in the Latvian Government who bandy around the slogan ‘Latvia for Latvians’. There are also people in the European Commission who do not hear, or who do not wish to hear, that a gross violation of the fundamental rights of the Russian-speaking citizens and non-citizens of the Republic of Latvia, accounting for 45% of the population, is taking place in Latvia. There is a disease called sclerosis, where there is no pain but every day brings news. Thank you.

  Metin Kazak (ALDE). – (BG) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Bulgaria’s citizens have witnessed for the first time in 22 years badly organised and compromised presidential and local elections, held against the background of unprecedented violations of the law and unconstitutional actions. The principles of pluralism and of equal, universal suffrage, essential for a democratic European state, were violated.

More than 45 000 Bulgarian citizens who had ended up on so-called ‘banned lists’ were deprived of their right to vote. In many constituencies, the use of transparent ballot papers broke the rule of confidentiality guaranteed by the Constitution and Electoral Code. The exceptionally high incidence of signs of vote buying, forcing people to vote under the threat of being sacked, and other forms of vote control are unacceptable in a Member State of the European Union.

Violations were also noted by OSCE and PACE observers in 44% of constituencies. The governing administration’s responsibility for conducting elections in this manner raises a question about Bulgaria’s future in Europe and poses a serious threat to its democratic development.

  Georgios Papanikolaou (PPE). – (EL) Mr President, the last few days have been extremely tough for the euro area: there have been two changes of government – in Greece and Italy – and three economies – Italy, Spain and France – have seen their borrowing rates hit record highs.

The Commission communication published just last Thursday containing economic forecasts for the next two years starts with the drastic finding that the recovery of the European economy has stopped; at the same time, Eurostat has found that unemployment in the European Union as a whole is rising and has now reached 10.2%. There can be no doubt that the euro area is currently at the most difficult turning point in its history and we all need to be honest about that.

We have two paths before us: one is the solitary path of admitting failure, the path fed by scaremongering articles and by those who never believed in Europe. The other is the path of addressing what are now common challenges, the path of mutual trust and effort, the path mapped by the founding fathers of the European Union, which we can and must continue to follow. This is the tried and tested Community path that leads to prosperity and progress in the Member States.

  Iliana Malinova Iotova (S&D). – (BG) Mr President, elections were held in Bulgaria to choose the country’s president and local government bodies. After years of difficult transition, the country’s fragile democracy is again at stake. Vote buying, vote control by the government, police methods, political pressure, the use of criminal elements to cause intimidation and ballot paper abuses – all of this became the hallmark of the electoral process.

There was unprecedented interference by the executive power. The interior minister took charge of the ruling party’s political headquarters. Almost half a million Bulgarian citizens were included in ‘banned lists’, depriving them of the right to vote. One of the greatest achievements of democracy has been violated – the right to free elections.

The elections are now being disputed by all the parties. For the first time since democratic changes have occurred in Bulgaria, the opposition wants the presidential elections to be annulled. The overwhelming view is that it won the elections, but lost the count.

Today, President Barroso called for a deepening of democracy as a guarantee of the European Union’s proper integration. If we do not halt the war on democracy today, xenophobia, populism and the violation of human rights will gain more, new ground tomorrow.

This is why we are still awaiting the assessment of the Electoral Commission in Bulgaria on the elections, where President Barroso and a number of Commissioners overtly showed their commitment to the ruling party.

  President. – That concludes the item.

19. Consumer policy (short presentation)

  President. – The next item is the report by Kyriacos Triantaphyllides, on behalf of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, on a new strategy for consumer policy (2011/2149(INI)) (A7-0369/2011).

  Kyriacos Triantaphyllides, rapporteur. – (EL) Mr President, the European Commission announced through the Directorate General of Health and Consumers that it would present the new act on consumer rights in May or June 2012. On that basis, the European Parliament undertook to draft an own-initiative report in order to put its mark on the new act. The draft report was initially undertaken by Eva-Britt Svensson on behalf of my political group; however, she was forced to abandon it when she resigned due to health reasons and I was appointed to complete it.

I should like to express my warmest thanks to Eva-Britt for the work which she managed to do on this report and I wish her a speedy recovery. Both Ms Svensson and I wished to identify the weaknesses and omissions in the system and to include provisions to empower consumers. The basic objectives of the draft report, as formulated in the proposed preliminary draft, were to highlight the problems faced by citizens/consumers, to eliminate inequalities between consumers and in their relations with companies, to safeguard consumer rights in general, with specific emphasis on e-commerce, to establish an effective alternative dispute resolution system, better product safety and a high level of consumer protection, to focus on vulnerable groups of the population in a bid to achieve a more socially fair Europe, to ensure consumers have better access to social welfare services, ecology and sustainability, to reduce the exposure of consumers to dangerous chemicals, such as antibiotics in the meat industry and parabens in cosmetics, to reduce artificial transfats in foods, and to protect children from advertising.

Naturally, the political groups took differing approaches to the above objectives and tabled a total of 188 amendments in order to put forward their solutions to the various issues. In a bid to include as many views as possible in the report without altering its fundamental nature, we formulated 16 compromise amendments with the help of the shadow rapporteurs and the report, as it now stands, was ultimately put to the vote in the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection on 17 October 2011, when it was adopted by 23 votes to zero, with 10 abstentions.

However, the draft, as adopted, did not satisfy all sides in Parliament: that was because, although the report was a report on consumer policy strategy, it was adopted without any reference to the objective of a more socially fair Europe; at the same time, almost all the references to dangerous carcinogenic chemicals had been deleted, as had the position that direct television advertising targeting children under 12 should be banned.

In light of this development and following agreement with all the political groups, we opened a new round of discussions, which ultimately resulted in a commitment on all sides to support the compromise text proposed for adoption tomorrow, which highlights the problems faced by consumers, who have been rendered more vulnerable by the economic crisis, seeks greater product safety, emphasises the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, seeks a higher level of consumer protection and environmental protection, expresses concern at the extensive advertising to which children are exposed and recommends ways of combating food waste.

I should like at this point to thank all the shadow rapporteurs for the spirit of collaboration that they demonstrated and for their very important contributions to the final text, in which agreement was reached on the basic aspects of the report, and for all undertaking to vote in favour of it in tomorrow’s vote.

  Alajos Mészáros (PPE). – (HU) Mr President, the report is right to place the consumer at the heart of what takes place in the European internal market. Guaranteeing the free movement of goods, services and capital must genuinely serve the needs of EU citizens. I would like to point out that although there has been a clear change in terms of consumer awareness and familiarity with consumer rights, Europe is still divided as regards this sensitive issue. We must put our full weight behind the Commission’s efforts to ensure that from 2012 onwards, there will be clear changes in consumer protection both within Member States and in cross-border matters. We must reinforce information networks and place greater emphasis on the provision of information and resources for consumer protection campaigns, consumer protection surveys and product testing. Identifying individual anomalies and violations of the law is straightforward if those affected have appropriate instruments at their disposal. I would just like to mention the product test carried out in the spring which showed that in Slovakia, some manufacturers do not think very highly of buyers in Central European markets. I hope that the Commission’s new initiative will bring about transparency in consumer protection legislation and improve its implementation.

  Katarína Neveďalová (S&D). – (SK) Mr President, consumer rights have become a part of social rights, which means that educating us to be good consumers means, in fact, educating us to be better citizens. Despite the fact that, in this report, we deal with many groups of citizens and their protection, I do not detect any focus on or more attention being paid to the rights of young people as consumers. Young people are becoming consumers at a lower and lower age and, at the same time, they are the most innovative group of consumers. They are open to new things, such as purchasing through the Internet.

This is why it is really important to educate these consumers and, for example, the introduction of compulsory education on consumer rights into the curriculum of elementary schools across the whole European Union can surely help in educating a new generation, which will be more responsible and aware of its rights.

Of course, we should not forget other generations either, and we should continue to inform people and educate them about consumer rights in general. Only this way can we improve the whole situation in the field of consumer rights, otherwise we will have 800 directives in vain if people do not know how to utilise them.

  Malcolm Harbour (ECR). – Mr President, as the Chair of the Committee, and also on behalf of my group, I want to warmly welcome this report and thank Mr Triantaphyllides for continuing the excellent work of Mrs Svensson.

It is unfortunate that such an ambitious and wide-ranging report has to be confined to this relatively short time and we are not having a full debate on it.

Nevertheless, this is a real call to Commissioner Dalli, who I warmly welcome here this evening, to be ambitious in his consumer strategy work that he is now developing.

This report was commissioned by the coordinators of the committees specifically to feed into that process and it is quite clear when you look at this report that at the moment, we have a very fragmented position. We have issues in Mr Barnier’s Directorate, we have issues in Mr Tajani’s Directorate, we have issues with Mrs Reding’s, and we also have issues on the economic and monetary affairs side, and I welcome the opinion we have had from them.

I think you have a big challenge, Commissioner Dalli, and I hope you will be looking at this thoroughly and coming up with a wide-ranging policy that is going to deliver the sort of framework we need for empowered, confident and well-protected consumers to be at the foundation of a single market, going forward.

  Ilda Figueiredo (GUE/NGL). – (PT) Mr President, I would like to begin by also thanking the former Member, Eva-Britt Svensson, and our fellow Member, Kyriacos Triantaphyllides, for their work on a new strategy for consumer policy. It is important here to give particular attention to the difficulties faced by consumers, especially those sections of the public most affected by the severe economic and social crisis being felt in various Member States.

Alongside information campaigns, inspections and product testing, it is vital to ensure that all those groups – namely workers, the retired, children, young people, women and migrants – receive sufficient income to give them access to all essential goods and services, especially foodstuffs, but also health care, energy supplies, transport and suitable housing, to enable them to lead a dignified life.

  Elena Băsescu (PPE). – (RO) Mr President, I, too, would like to welcome the Commission’s initiative concerning the Consumer Agenda. A coherent legal framework is needed at European level to ensure adequate protection for all citizens. Combating misleading advertising is an important aspect of this process. I would point out that the National Authority for Consumer Protection (ANPC) in Romania has initiated draft amending legislation in this area with a view to better protecting consumer interests.

Information and education activities are also needed. For example, a national competition entitled ‘Choose – it’s your right’, organised by the ANPC and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, is held each year in Romania with a view to educating young consumers. This competition, now being held for the ninth time, is aimed at school pupils between the ages of 6 and 18 and seeks to create a generation of consumers who are aware of their rights.

  Mitro Repo (S&D). – (FI) Mr President, as shadow rapporteur for the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, I think that the report is a fairly good one. However, I am still astonished at how indifferent our attitude here in Parliament is towards ordinary people, and especially consumers in more vulnerable positions.

Of course, in our fine speeches, we claim that consumers are at the heart of the single market, but, in reality, we tend to give more importance to market forces and economic growth. Consumer protection and increased levels of safety are the EU’s ambitious goals. Vulnerable groups, such as the elderly and children, need protection in particular.

I am pleased that the report is calling for a ban on misleading advertising targeted at children. Advertising aimed at children also affects their relationships with their friends and their social status. Clothes, toys and electronic goods, for example, very quickly show whether a family has money or not. Surely none of us here want exclusion among Europeans to start in the nursery. For this reason, I hope that we can also genuinely convey to companies the notion of the sort of more solidary Europe that we want to take forward.

  Constance Le Grip (PPE). – (FR) Mr President, the report on a new strategy for consumer policy, which we will vote on tomorrow, lays the very specific foundations that we wish to see adopted by the European Commission when it proposes its new ‘Consumer Agenda’ at the start of 2012.

Making consumers aware of their responsibilities, providing them with better information, ensuring the safety of the products available to them, quickly implementing existing EU legislation and ensuring that all stakeholders are aware of their rights and responsibilities: those should be the priorities for national and European legislators, for national and European decision makers, and also for companies, professional organisations and consumer associations.

Above all, I believe that this is the right stage at which to begin proper, detailed discussions, so as to strike the correct balance between the amount and depth of information that consumers really need, the way in which they will use that information when making purchases, and the administrative and financial costs for companies of publishing it.

The key word is therefore ‘responsibility’: responsibility on the part of producers, entrepreneurs, businesses and service providers, as well as on the part of consumers.

  John Dalli, Member of the Commission. – Mr President, I would like to thank Parliament, the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) and, in particular, the rapporteur, Mr Triantaphyllides, and the previous rapporteur, Eva-Britt Svensson for the ‘Report on a New Strategy for Consumer Policy’.

I realise that a report is, in essence, a series of compromises and might not address, or not address fully, all the issues some of you consider most important.

That said, I must say that the final outcome of your work provides excellent input into the Commission’s work on consumer policy. It contains very substantial elements for the promotion of the interests of European consumers. In particular, I very much welcome the comprehensive approach to consumer policy embodied in the report. Indeed, a successful modern consumer policy cannot be only about legislation, but has to be multi-faceted.

In this context, the report rightly puts the emphasis on consumer safety, both for products and food. It stresses the importance of empowering consumers, of consumer education and information. It rightly emphasises the need for EU consumer policy to support growth and innovation in the retail sector and, in particular, the completion of the digital single market. It cites reviewing the existing consumer legislation, notably in relation to unfair commercial practices and misleading advertising, and redress – including alternative dispute resolution and on-line dispute resolution – among the priorities.

It insists on the need to ensure effective implementation and enforcement of existing legislation. It highlights some cross-cutting issues such as sustainable consumption, vulnerable consumers and accessibility. From a sectoral point of view, it rightly puts the stress on financial services, energy and digital.

Together with previous Parliament reports dealing with consumer issues – such as the Grech, Hedh, Arias and Schaldemose reports, as well as the forthcoming work on vulnerable consumers – this report offers the Commission an extremely valuable source of inspiration for its work on the future consumer policy.

Let me say a few words about the Commission’s intentions in this respect. Vice-President Reding and I envisage presenting a Consumer Agenda in the first half of next year. This Consumer Agenda will present a coherent, strategic vision for consumer policy in the years to come, together with milestones set between 2012 and the end of the current Commission’s mandate. We envisage an ambitious text, focusing on concrete measures, putting consumers at the centre of the single market, something you have stressed in your report.

The key principle will be to empower consumers, in the broadest sense of the term. Empowerment is about how consumers can participate actively in the market and make it work for them. We will include consumer issues under Vice-President Reding’s portfolio and my own, but also measures falling under other Commissioners’ responsibility, such as financial services, energy, transport and digital.

This will meet a key concern mentioned in your report, namely, the need for a coherent, holistic approach to consumer policy.

The Consumer Agenda will also need to take into account the emerging challenges facing future consumer policy: the need to move towards more sustainable patterns of consumption; to address the specific needs of an ageing population; digitalisation (including e-commerce); and the issue of social inclusion and vulnerable consumers. Again, this is fully in line with your report.

The European Consumer Agenda will also have the explicit ambition to build on the progress already made in realising a European Judicial Area, thus enhancing the role that judges, legal practitioners and enforcement authorities can play, including across borders. To this end, the Consumer Agenda shall be built on partnerships, both in order to pull resources together, in line with the principle of ‘doing more with less’, and bringing on board all relevant actors. This includes partnerships with Member States on enforcement and information, with intermediaries (consumer organisations and the media), with business on consumer information, and at international level on product safety. We have already collected contributions from the advisory networks that we manage which bring together consumer organisations and national authorities.

We now plan to organise a hearing at the beginning of 2012, possibly with the help of the IMCO Committee. Discussions are ongoing as regards its organisation. As a first step, we are preparing, in response to an earlier request from Parliament, a report on the integration of consumer interests into all aspects of consumer policy. This should be ready in early 2012.

Finally, I would add that last week, the Commission adopted a proposal for the 2014-2020 consumer programme – the financial framework that will underpin the Consumer Agenda from 2014 onwards. This is now for discussion between the budgetary authorities.

The proposed consumer programme focuses on four key areas of action, covering the whole spectrum of consumer policy. I am particularly pleased to note that its four specific objectives are very much in tune with the recommendations of your report: consumer safety (products, food and services); providing consumers with the right information and the educational tools to properly understand it; consolidating and further strengthening consumer rights and redress, and, last but not least, enforcement of consumer rights.

  President. – The debate is closed.

The vote will take place tomorrow (Tuesday, 15 November 2011).

20. Online gambling (short presentation)

  President. – The next item is the report by Jürgen Creutzmann, on behalf of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, on online gambling in the Internal Market [2011/2084(INI)] (A7-0342/2011).

  Jürgen Creutzmann, rapporteur. – (DE) Mr President, I should like to start by expressing my deep gratitude to all the shadow rapporteurs, who made this report possible through their excellent cooperation. The committee agreed to this report with an overwhelming vote of 30 in favour, one against and one abstention.

Online gambling is an international phenomenon that is growing on a daily basis. Consumers find it easy to gamble online with providers who are either completely unregulated or who are registered in other countries where different rules apply.

As a result, some individual Member States are no longer able to guarantee sufficient protection for their consumers. Children and young people or gambling addicts are particularly affected by this. In addition, frequently illegal foreign competition causes Member States to lose many millions of euro in tax revenue every year.

This comes at a cost to the promotion of charitable projects, combating addiction and support for amateur sport. Finally, legal uncertainties make it difficult to offer cross-border gambling services within the internal market. Given that there are no European licensing standards, it is necessary to decide on a case-by-case basis whether practices in the Member States comply with European law.

The existing level of legal uncertainty is made clear by the large number of contractual violation cases in recent years. That is why there is an urgent need to close the existing gap between legislation and reality.

The Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection has come to a clear conclusion. The Member States need to cooperate much more closely on this issue. This will not be enough to resolve the problems outlined, however. In addition, the European Union will also have to play a significant role in future. This has been demanded by our committee with an overwhelming majority. In addition to other measures, an EU directive is also to be considered that will set shared minimum standards for consumer and youth protection, combating crime in the area of online gambling.

Although the committee emphasises the principle of subsidiarity in its report on online gambling, the Member States need to regulate online betting for themselves insofar as possible within their own territory. However, this means that certain rules will need to be met in accordance with the judicial rulings of the European Court of Justice: restrictions in the legal range of gambling services, through state monopoly for example, are only permitted if they are coherent and proportionate. We cannot have a situation where a state explains away its monopoly by arguing that it wishes to protect consumers from the negative effects of gambling, while at the same time intensively advertising its range of state-backed gambling options. The best example of this can be found in Germany, where we have a state monopoly on gambling and lotteries, but with frequent advertising informing consumers of the current size of the jackpot, naturally encouraging players to invest their money in the lottery.

To avoid such situations in the future, the European Union should set down quality standards for state licensing models. If a Member State decides in favour of a state licensing model, this model must comply with the principles of transparency and fair competition. In other words, all providers of gambling services that comply with the relevant conditions should be able to apply for a licence. At the same time, trust between the national regulatory authorities needs to be strengthened so as to achieve greater cooperation. In addition, the Commission is called upon to examine ways to use legislation to prevent the flow of payments between illegal providers and their customers. This could be achieved, for example, if each Member State were to draw up a white list of licensed gambling operators in its territory. Banks and credit institutions would only then be permitted to authorise transactions with these approved operators. I believe that this is a sensible and realistic alternative to the blocking of Internet sites, something that we, as liberals, would not favour. This measure would also be an important step in securing tax income from legal gambling, combating organised crime, and protecting the consumer from unregulated gambling.

Everyone, regulated providers, the public purse and consumers alike, would benefit from the measures called for in the report. Nonetheless, the European Commission needs the full backing of the European Parliament in order to present the necessary initiatives. It is for this reason I am hopeful that there will be a broad majority in favour at tomorrow’s vote, giving the Commission a clear mandate for action. Mr Barnier, it is over to you.

  Zuzana Roithová (PPE). – (CS) Mr President, this report and the Commission’s Green Paper are steps in the right direction after four years of discussion on how to regulate the unregulatable. On-line gambling does not only cross national borders but also those of the Union. Nevertheless, we need to seek joint methods to protect customers from fraud, to combat money laundering more effectively and to protect young people from gambling, and all this at a European level. Within the framework of this stage, I also believe that different national procedures should be respected but subsidiarity should not hinder close cooperation in the detection of criminal activity, nor should it serve as a pretext for protectionism. Therefore, it is important to delete Article 20. States which restrict licences should provide objective reasons for their failure to comply with national legislation.

  María Irigoyen Pérez (S&D). – (ES) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are dealing with an extremely sensitive issue. Firstly, we must take into account cultural traditions, as well as the important sustainable contribution that betting makes to society in some countries, such as mine, through education, culture and sport.

However, we must also fight the criminality associated with gambling and protect consumers, especially the most vulnerable, in order to prevent excessive and pathological gambling. This is why I believe that the principle of active subsidiarity based on cooperation between national governments must take precedence in this field.

Nevertheless, we must be ambitious and focus on developing common regulations and working together in a coordinated fashion against unregulated online gambling operators, which operate without the necessary national licences. We must also ensure transparency and enable non-discriminatory competition that will promote public interest and consumer protection.

Lastly, we must encourage the creation of a network of national organisations to support gambling addicts, which will make it possible to exchange experiences and tried and tested practices.

  Hannu Takkula (ALDE). – (FI) Mr President, it is worth remembering that the purpose of the Green Paper concerning online gambling is to provide an alternative to the definition of gambling policy that has emerged as a result of decisions by the Court of Justice. The individual judgments of the Court of Justice in cases of infringement, however, cannot be the answer to the challenges of the future.

As this report has stated, in no uncertain terms, Europe’s policy on gambling needs to be clarified by means, inter alia, of better cooperation on the part of the authorities that oversee gambling. To ensure that this happens, it is important that the last clause in point 22 of the report is deleted, as it contradicts the reasoning elsewhere in the document.

Secondly, mutual acceptance does not apply to gambling, as gambling games are organised under the aegis of national legislation, which takes account of the special features of Member States. Point 15 in the report states that providers of online gambling should respect national laws, and that Member States should have the right to take the necessary action to prevent illegal gambling. In the future, too, it will be important for Member States to retain the right to decide on their own levels of consumer protection and measures to prevent criminality.

Thirdly, the basis for granting an exclusive right to provide gambling games is the prevention of social harm and combating crime in the gambling sector. That is why it is very important to ensure that gambling can be ethically sustainable. It is important that point 44 at the end of the report is kept and that the matter is addressed in greater depth.

  Jaroslav Paška (EFD). – (SK) Mr President, together with the increasing spread of mobile and online communication technologies, the online gambling sector is growing too. Even if the Member States can, to a certain extent, determine the degree of regulation required in their own territory, it must be in accordance with the regulations of the European internal market.

However, operators of games of chance from other states, which have an open market and low tax rates, are also available in states where online gambling is forbidden. Besides that, a non-regulated black market is also operating on the Internet. Online gambling sites are also widely accessible to under-aged children or to people susceptible to pathological gambling.

This is why we have to search for a proper framework for the responsible regulation of this environment. The European Court of Justice has already taken a decision that gambling does not belong to ordinary services and its regulation in accordance with the appropriately set goals is admissible. It would therefore be useful to define the minimum standards for the protection of consumers in the field of online gambling in order to enable more rigorous legal action to be taken against these types of activities in the Member States.

  Damien Abad (PPE). – (FR) Madam President, Commissioner, as rapporteur for the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats), I think that this is a very good document, a compromise text with a controlled system for the opening up of the online gambling sector. ‘Controlled’ means that regulation must be at national level and cooperation at European level. That is to say, not applying the principle of mutual recognition in a sector and market that are different from others, namely online gambling, and, at the same time, complying with the principle of active subsidiarity, thereby also increasing and strengthening cooperation between national regulators.

We recognise that a European approach is needed for a number of areas, notably for anti-fraud measures, the protection of minors and combating illegal operators and addiction.

Finally, it is also important that the integrity of sport is addressed, in order to ensure the equitable distribution of revenues generated. In this regard, I asked for and obtained the mention of betting rights, a type of property rights for the organisers of sports events which can be enforced with regard to online betting operators. These rights would safeguard financial revenues for sports providers and thus avoid the increased risk of corruption or fraud in sport.

This strategy clearly fits into the social market economy that you are championing, Commissioner.

  Olga Sehnalová (S&D). – (CS) Mr President, on-line gambling is extremely convenient; you just click the mouse at home and you are in the game. Pathological gambling is extremely hazardous and its social costs are enormous, too. This addiction may affect as many as 5.5% of citizens of the European Union, which means we are talking about several million European citizens. I therefore regard the protection of consumers and the prevention of pathological gambling as a basic requirement. I think it is important to adopt common European regulations leading to the effective protection of vulnerable groups, in particular young people, who are the most exposed to this kind of danger. Member States should cooperate much more closely with each other in this area, in particular, while combating the negative aspects of gambling. As such, I am happy to see that the report contains, amongst other things, an appeal to the Commission and the Member States to focus on research on the prevalence, origin and treatment of addiction to these forms of gambling. A combination of the prevention of negative aspects and effective help to the victims of gambling is the only possible way to actively prevent Internet gambling.

  Malcolm Harbour (ECR). – Mr President, I warmly welcome this report and I want to particularly thank Jürgen Creutzmann for animating a very detailed and complicated series of negotiations to come up with what, I hope, this Chamber will accept with a large majority tomorrow. That is important because it will give a clear signal to Commissioner Barnier, who I know is extremely interested in this, about the areas where the Commission can move forward in the framework of active subsidiarity. I think that is a great word that has come out of this report, which does not undermine the ability of every Member State to regulate gambling in its tradition and in its history, but, at the same time, places an obligation on Member States to say that if you do not intensify your cooperation together, then consumers will not be properly looked after in every country. We are entitled to demand that safety and security for consumers and protection for under-age and addictive gambling; those two things absolutely must go together, and I hope we can make some serious progress on this as a result of the work that Parliament has done.

  Michel Barnier, Member of the Commission. – (FR) Mr President, honourable Members, 18 months ago, I promised you that I would open a wide-ranging consultation on the very important issue of online gambling. Today, we return to that subject, and I personally would like to come back to it by expressing my firm commitment to translating the main conclusions into action, beyond and after the consultation.

We received over 250 responses which, along with the five expert workshops we organised, and the lively debates you yourselves have had, ladies and gentlemen, on the own-initiative report by Mr Creutzmann, clearly show a desire to see concrete steps taken at European level towards establishing a basic regulatory framework that respects that which Mr Harbour called – and which I too would like to mention – active subsidiarity.

I should like to thank Mr Creutzmann for his commitment, and Ms Schaldemose, Ms Rühle, Mr Abad, Mr de Jong and Mr Fox for the contributions they have made to this report.

The report testifies to your broad consensus on the assessment.

Firstly, in the online environment, no Member State is in a position to guarantee the protection of consumers and citizens by itself. I am echoing what my fellow Commissioner and friend, Mr Dalli, said earlier on the more general issue of consumers.

Secondly, all consumers and citizens – and particularly young people and minors, as Ms Roithová said earlier – should be able to enjoy a minimum level of equal and effective protection, no matter what kind of gambling platform they use.

Thirdly, while every Member State is free to determine its own market’s level of deregulation, in accordance with the principle of coherence, it is clear that we are gradually moving towards a controlled deregulation of numerous markets, as Mr Abad very succinctly described earlier.

Fourthly, in the absence of legal offerings in Europe, Europeans gamble and will continue to gamble on illegal third-country websites, which are not protected and are open to all kinds of fraud and money laundering.

Fifthly, we should be careful to offer attractive conditions for online gambling operators, taking account of the consequences of what I have just said, if we wish to both protect players and prevent fraud.

Sixthly, we need to act, because this sector is booming. In 2010, it generated EUR 8.5 billion in revenue, a figure that could reach EUR 13 billion in 2015. This may account for only 14% of the betting market in the EU, but Europe still makes up 45% of the world’s online gambling market. We need to support this sector as it expands while, at the same time, taking care to monitor it. What road map might we and should we use to respond to all your questions and all these challenges?

Ladies and gentlemen, let us be clear. We are not talking about harmonisation; we are looking at joint action on certain key issues, which will no doubt lead us towards a basic common regulatory framework, as I have already said.

I would like to mention six key areas in which we are going to take action.

Firstly, a dialogue between national regulators. We know that there is a lack of cooperation between national regulators, which probably stems from a lack of mutual trust.

Apart from a few bilateral agreements and a recent attempt to create a common platform, there is no culture of cooperation between national regulators. On the contrary, I have noticed that there has often been, and I repeat, a lack of trust.

However, without a new, additional degree of mutual trust, no progress will be made at European level in strengthening controls and safeguarding players, particularly the young.

Our priority should therefore be to make European regulators work together.

The second key point: a minimum standard of protection. We have to guarantee a high level of protection for every European citizen and, I repeat, particularly for young people, in order to move forward in this area. We will have to make online gambling professionals, who are currently self-regulated, and regulators, who, I would point out, apply different standards, work together. There is, consequently, a general requirement for greater clarity and legal certainty, and you put that across in your report, Mr Creutzmann.

The third key issue: the fight against fraud. There has been a broad consensus, in this consultation and in what you have been saying here, in favour of extending the scope of the directive on the prevention of money laundering so that it covers the entire online gambling sector rather than just casinos, as is currently the case. That would represent a significant step forward in monitoring the sector at EU level.

The fourth important point is addiction. Ms Irigoyen Pérez and Ms Sehnalová mentioned this earlier. We cannot talk seriously about consumer protection without recognising the need for further studies and research into the scientific data on gambling and addiction. We need to make full use of our research capacities on what can be considered at times a minor issue, although I do not see it as such.

The integrity of sport is the fifth key aspect. Mr Creutzmann, ladies and gentlemen, I have noted your interest in the matter of fraud in sport, and I share your desire to help find effective solutions, including the idea of defining sporting fraud at EU level and even of criminalising it. I believe it is an interesting idea but one that would be difficult to implement. We cannot address this issue by improvising. It requires a great deal of legal and technical work, and I am working on this with my fellow Commissioners who are directly involved, particularly Ms Reding, Ms Vassiliou and, of course, the Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy, Mr Dalli.

I am also convinced that progress will have to be made if, as Mr Abad mentioned, sporting organisations are to cooperate more with operators and regulators in order to prevent match fixing.

The sixth area to work on is ensuring that national systems comply with the Treaties. I would like to answer Mr Takkula on this point, because he mentioned the European Court of Justice, which is quite clear on the restrictions that can be justified in the public interest.

I think that in order to make progress in this area, Mr Takkula, we will need to clarify what distinguishes a legal gambling offering from an illegal one. This raises the question of compliance of national systems with the Treaties. The Commission will shoulder its responsibilities in this area as in others.

Mr Creutzmann, based on these key issues, your comments, your proposals and your report, how are we going to tackle this?

My own initial inclination would be to promote cooperation between regulators, and in the coming weeks I intend to personally organise and hold a meeting with all the national regulators in order to establish a climate of trust, which does not really exist at the moment, and to lay the foundations of that cooperation.

If, as one might expect, that cooperation between regulators enables us to move forward on the key subjects we have talked about, but especially if it highlights the need for additional action, then we will work towards a second stage, which could, as Mr Paška requested, be based on regulatory initiatives, and create minimum standards.

Naturally, I want to be very clear on this issue. I am a Member of the College of European Commissioners, and I have to work with all my colleagues and encourage them to share that conviction. We will quickly embark on the first stage, which I already mentioned: regulators working together. Following that initial assessment and effort, I will have to share with my colleagues my belief in the need to go further, as I have just expressed, particularly in terms of drawing up basic regulatory initiatives.

It will therefore be important to work through these stages one by one. Therefore, now that I have set out the main issues we are facing, I shall begin my work in the light of your report, Mr Creutzmann, and I intend to propose a plan of specific actions, which I shall submit to the European Commission in mid-2012, once the College has debated and reached a decision on it.

I am infinitely grateful to you, Mr Creutzmann, and to you, ladies and gentlemen, for this report, which is going to enlighten, guide and strengthen the Commission in its forthcoming work.

We have a collective responsibility: to help Member States to regulate online gambling; to safeguard consumers, particularly young people; to develop legal offerings; and to fight effectively and jointly against fraud.

You can be sure of my determination in all these areas.

  President. – The debate is closed.

The vote will take place tomorrow (Tuesday, 15 November 2011).

Written statements (Rule 149)

  Sergio Berlato (PPE), in writing. – (IT) According to recent figures, the online gambling sector is growing constantly. Nowadays, about 10% – a figure which is rising – of all gambling in Europe takes place online, with a market volume in excess of EUR 10 billion. As a result of ever increasing offerings and the increasing number of gamblers, the current market fragmentation in this area in Europe is also becoming ever more obvious. In a host of Member States, there are total bans or bans with the possibility of authorisation, while others have a completely liberalised market. Furthermore, in view of the cross-border nature of the Internet, Member States alone are not in a position to regulate all areas of online gambling. In my view, much-expanded cooperation between national regulatory bodies is therefore essential. In addition, I agree with the rapporteur that what is needed are institutionalised collaborative arrangements, also on the basis of the Internal Market Information System, in order to share information efficiently and quickly. As far as the battle against the growing black market on the Internet is concerned, I believe that national regulators must be given the necessary powers to penalise infringements and act against illegal providers.

  Louis Grech (S&D), in writing. – Taking an EU-regulated approach which respects the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality and which is in line with single market rules is the best way forward. The disadvantages which emanate from an unregulated gambling market are greater than those encountered in a more regulated and uniform one. Therefore, any action plan must factor in extra precautions geared towards meeting the challenges and countering the elements of risk posed by the online environment in terms of the safeguard of minors, player protection, payment security and data protection of individuals engaged in Internet gambling, as well as ensuring that fair competition for operators duly licensed in other Member States is guaranteed in each Member State. I am unable to support the endorsement of national restrictions vis-à-vis the online gambling sector, which could have an adverse effect on gaming operators that are duly licensed as aforementioned and wish to operate cross-border. The term ‘illegal’, which remains undefined throughout the text, is unacceptable as it gives rise to legal ambiguity and encourages Member States to take protectionist measures in the online gambling sector, further increasing the fragmentation of the market. I therefore propose that a common definition based on the European Commission Green Paper is attributed to the concept of ‘illegal’ at EU level.

21. Honeybee health and beekeeping (short presentation)

  President. – The next item is the report by Csaba Sándor Tabajdi, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on honeybee health and the challenges of the beekeeping sector [2011/2108(INI)] (A7-0359/2011).

  Csaba Sándor Tabajdi, rapporteur. – (HU) Mr President, Commissioner Dalli, ladies and gentlemen, the main focus of my report is honeybee health, but I would also like to respond to some of the other important challenges facing this sector. The directorate general of the European Commission produced an excellent communication; I used it as the basis for my report and have tried to develop it further. I would like the Commission, the Member States and those concerned in the beekeeping sector to actually implement the many concrete proposals set out in this report. It is not primarily European honey production that is at stake. Through pollination, the beekeeping sector offers vital services to agriculture as a whole and contributes to biodiversity. If it were not for the activities of bees and other pollinators, 85% of agricultural crops would not exist. In other words, the beekeeping sector provides vital environmental public goods, and this is why we need to use Community resources to support it.

The problem is that for decades, medicines have been in short supply. The big pharmaceutical companies lack sufficient interest in developing new medicinal products, while the beekeeping industry does not have enough money to support the development of new honeybee health products. This is a problem that has gone on for decades. If we cannot make progress on these issues using Community resources, then the crisis currently affecting the European and global beekeeping sector will not be resolved.

The other major problem is that the sector is not sufficiently well organised. Reliable statistical data on honeybee health, and even on the number of hives or colonies, are lacking. So it would be vital to have reliable figures to work with, at both Member State and European Union level. Another big problem is that many beekeepers lack professional competence. It would be very important for Member States to make beekeeping subject to some kind of professional training requirement. I consider it very important to assess the effect of plant protection on honeybee health problems, which is the most controversial issue. There are those in Parliament who would like to lay all the blame on plant protection products; I disagree with this. Others, meanwhile, try to play down their impact.

Regrettably, certain forces prevented me from including in my report details of which plant protection products are particularly harmful and which active substances in these products could be substituted by other active substances less harmful to honeybee health. I am referring to neonicotinoid pesticides and, in future, I will be fighting alongside friends campaigning for environmental protection and bee protection to have these substances removed from plant protection products wherever possible.

I call upon the Commission to modify the Honey Directive because quality parameters for honey are not adequately defined under the current provisions and this means that we are unable to take appropriate action against adulterators and the adulteration of honey. Quality issues relating to imported honey are also a problem. Last, the extent to which genetically modified, or genetically engineered, crops are harmful or not is also the subject of major controversy.

I call upon the European Commission to commission at last a research study that is reliable, objective and scientific, as this is not a matter of feelings but of science. At present, no such study exists. With regard to antibiotics, meanwhile, I call upon Commissioner Dalli to legislate on this issue at EU level. In the case of meat products, for example, there are set limits for antibiotic residue content, despite the fact that we consume much more meat than honey. There is no such provision in the case of honey. It would be good to resolve this at EU level. Finally, Albert Einstein once said, and I thought this was an exaggeration, that if the world’s bees were to perish, then humans would perish within four years too. He may have been speaking figuratively, but in the light of what we now know about the huge impact of beekeeping in terms of securing food production and maintaining biodiversity, I believe we should listen to Albert Einstein’s advice. Thank you for your attention.

  Seán Kelly (PPE). – Mr President, as the previous speaker said, this is a very important topic, but not many people realise how important it is. As he pointed out, Einstein certainly knew how important it was. His quotation is well worth recalling, and indeed highlighting, because if 85% of species are dependent on pollination and the bee dies out, then that is the end of it. Certainly Einstein was quite right in that regard.

There are a lot of issues here which have to be looked at. The Department of Agriculture has been successful in Ireland in preserving our native bee species by not allowing foreign species to be imported. I think it is very important that the purity of various species is preserved because this is a huge issue. Also, in terms of the economy, if we can increase the importance of honey as part of a stable diet, we could certainly also look at that to improve the situation.

  Evelyn Regner (S&D). – (DE) Mr President, it is obvious that in times of crisis, the health of the bee population is not taken as seriously as it should be. This is a mistake however. Albert Einstein once said that humanity would be able to survive for only four years without bees. Mortality among bees affects agriculture, rural development, food production, the maintenance of biodiversity and, ultimately, our lives. Speaking for Austria, I can tell you that there has been a 30% decline in the bee population in some regions. It is important that this phenomenon should be researched.

I am therefore in favour of this programme of research and studies; however, this must not be our only measure. We need specific controls through agricultural supports and a strict authorisation process for plant protection products. After all, it is not just the Varroa mite that is causing the honey bee to die out – modern agriculture also plays a significant role here. For this reason, more financial support should be made available for research into improving the health of our bee population, prevention, effective and standardised medicines in the Member States and alternative options to clinical insecticides.

  Bas Eickhout (Verts/ALE). – (NL) Mr President, we all seem to agree about the importance of bees. However, when I read this report, I see no real fundamental criticism being levelled at how our agricultural model is currently working. The solution is even being sought through giving encouragement to the pharmaceutical industry to manufacture even more drugs, though we know that is the root of the problem, or in planting a couple of flower borders around agricultural fields. As if that is going to solve the problem!

There is, however, an alternative resolution, with a clearer criticism and a clearer focus on our precautionary principle. This demands that the neonicotinoids be removed from the market for the time being, because they have all too often been shown to be involved. That has to be done now. We also have to look very carefully at genetically modified drugs. There is enough evidence now to apply the precautionary principle. That is crucial.

Another important point is that we need to change our agricultural model. We need more crop rotation and fewer monocultures. Those issues must be thoroughly addressed. Only then will we really be able to solve the problem afflicting bees.

  Struan Stevenson (ECR). – Mr President, the European Court of Justice ruled in September that all jars of honey have to contain a label that says: ‘This product contains pollen’. That is extremely unhelpful. Of course, honey contains pollen: even a five-year-old child could tell you that. It is like putting a label on a bag of peanuts that says: ‘This bag may contain nuts’.

This additional cost to the industry at a time it is fighting against the disease, the Varroa mite and colony collapse disorder is extremely unwelcome and unhelpful.

We have been dealing in this Parliament for months with the consumer information regulation dealing with labels. It is not up to judges to make that decision. It is up to us as legislators here in this House.

So I would suggest to the judges that they drape a large banner above the door of their HQ in Luxembourg that says: ‘This court contains nuts’.

  João Ferreira (GUE/NGL). – (PT) Mr President, the constant weakening of bee colonies everywhere has become a major worry for which it has proved hard to find an effective overall solution. If we bear in mind that this decline is affecting not only domesticated bees but also wild stocks of the various species of pollinators, we shall easily see how serious the agricultural and ecological consequences are.

On a more general level, this problem cannot be dissociated from the current practice of intensive farming, predominantly monocultural, relying on the heavy and unsustainable use of agrochemicals and pesticides and disseminating genetically modified organisms without due precaution.

In addition to measures that can and should be adopted in the immediate term – banning certain types of product, or giving adequate scientific and technical help to farmers – what we need is more fundamental: a change from current modes of agricultural production and from the policies that support them.

The reform of the common agricultural policy would therefore be a good opportunity to start this far-reaching and all-important change.

  Maria do Céu Patrão Neves (PPE). – (PT) Mr President, while thanking the rapporteur and the shadow rapporteurs for their good work, I would like to stress an important aspect of the matter which, despite my efforts, has not been included. This is the need to guard against the harmful effects of using subspecies outside their natural range and to prevent the continuation of this practice, which started about 50 years ago and has placed bees in conditions to which they were not adapted.

In these cases, the subspecies has been selected on the basis of certain characteristics, such as honey yield, to the detriment of others that are essential to its survival, such as defensive mechanisms and swarming. It has even happened that exotic parasites and diseases have been introduced, leading, at times, to the extinction of local subspecies.

This practice, which is in no one’s interest, must therefore be stopped by means of adequate legislation and the proper training of beekeepers.

  Judith A. Merkies (S&D). – (NL) Mr President, I will be very brief. I, too, support the alternative resolution on which we shall be taking a vote tomorrow. Is it not the case that we have always explained fertility to our children by talking about the birds and the bees? The situation is very clear: if, in the near future, the bees disappear, not only will we not be able to give our children this explanation, we will also lose fertility, agricultural know-how and, ultimately, the methods that provide us with food. Therefore, we are slowly changing the whole of nature, because our farms are wrongly using too many pesticides, because they are relying on monocultures too much and because we are actually working with nature and agriculture in too industrial a fashion. Can we please return to the natural way of things, to the birds and the bees, and to the beginning?

  Andrew Henry William Brons (NI). – Mr President, bees, like their soul mates, the Roma, are famed for being free spirits. Like the attitude of that noble tribe towards discarded metal, bees care little about the title or provenance of the pollen that they collect. Ask any ordinary bee on the Clapham omnibus – or the Strasbourg tram – what it thinks about pollen from GM crops and it will shrug its little shoulders and say: ‘Don’t ask me, guv’nor, I only work here’.

If we were to insist that manufacturers of metal products should provide the exact location or source from which the Roma recyclers took the metal, then we would be told that this demand was unfair and even discriminatory and would put manufacturers and the Roma out of business. What is true for manufacturers and the Roma is also true of bees and honey-makers. Unreasonable demands that cannot be complied with will indeed drive firms out of business.

  Mairead McGuinness (PPE). – Mr President, I would have preferred if this report was about bees – both honey bees and bumble bees, and I think other colleagues have mentioned the issue of wild bees.

Before everyone jumps to their own conclusion about the causes of the problem, this report actually talks about the lack of reliable and comparative data on issues around honey bees and colony loss, and that we need an effective system that gives us information that we can actually work from. I think that is really important.

The idea of pesticides being a problem needs to be looked at, but the idea that farmers should use as little pesticide as possible, or that they use too much, should – and is – being regulated with new legislation on sustainable use of pesticides. That needs to be acknowledged.

I do accept that in terms of habitats, all insects need the appropriate area and, to my colleague who has just mentioned this, I have planted a number of hectares for bees on land that I have, and it does work. The bumble bees are there and it is effective.

So these measures can be adopted into our agricultural policy, which I will support.

  John Dalli, Member of the Commission. – Mr President, I am pleased to see that many events and discussions have taken place this year in Parliament, in the Council and elsewhere following the Commission Communication on bee health last December. This shows that this Communication has been instrumental in forging a better understanding of this matter.

Our initial assessment remains valid. The health of bees is strongly affected by various factors while to date, science has not yet determined the exact causes or the extent of bee loss.

Let me express here my appreciation for the excellent work of the rapporteur, Mr Tabajdi, who has produced a balanced report on this complex area.

The many factors affecting bee health are reflected in the report. Unfortunately, we agree that there are no quick and easy fixes, no one single solution, but it is clear that our research efforts need to be stepped up. We will pay attention to this in the selection of future research programmes, and we can fine-tune those elements which appear most influential.

The Commission has already completed several key actions, such as the designation of an EU reference laboratory for bee health and an increase in the EU’s contribution to the financing of the national apiculture programmes. I appreciate Parliament’s support for these initiatives.

Other actions are already planned. Parliament’s report certainly gives us food for thought on those items and on many more additional points. I can assure the honourable Members that we will look into all your suggestions with close attention. I am confident that our action will place us in a better position to decide on the best actions and strategies.

I would remind you, however, that the Commission has limited resources and tools. Member States and stakeholders have an important role to play. This could mean, for instance, investing further efforts in developing and putting on the market veterinary medicines. Similarly, Member States and stakeholder organisations could further promote good apiculture and agricultural practices, facilitate the dialogue between crop producers and beekeepers, and disseminate practical information to beekeepers.

Once again, may I say that I very much appreciate Parliament’s valuable report and look forward to continuing to make further progress on this important matter.

  President. – The debate is closed.

The vote will take place tomorrow (Tuesday, 15 November 2011).

Written statements (Rule 149)

  Robert Dušek (S&D), in writing. – (CS) Beekeeping provides key services for agriculture in the form of pollination and helps to preserve the biodiversity of species and maintain an ecological balance. In addition to this, it provides a livelihood for more than 600 000 EU citizens. This is why the agricultural value of beekeeping is strategic, as the success of food production itself depends upon pollination by bees. European beekeeping is suffering from the sporadic loss of entire bee colonies, and the reasons for these losses have so far not been adequately identified. The mass death of bees is most probably caused by high levels of environmental pollution and the widespread use of pesticides and antibiotics in agriculture. Genetically modified plants may also play a part in the loss of bee colonies. This view is reinforced by the fact that the manufacturers of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) do not participate in research on the effects of GMOs on bees. It would be of great benefit for beekeeping if the EU again reviewed and regulated the permitted and prohibited types of agricultural pesticides and fertilisers at the earliest opportunity. I welcome the Commission’s intention to publish its website in all language versions for dialogue and information-exchange between beekeepers of all Member States and regions and also between professional and amateur beekeepers. I am in favour of special programmes of financial aid for starter and young beekeepers across the EU and support for keeping original species of bees, which have been genetically more resistant to viruses and mites. A greater variety of bee species could be extremely beneficial to the situation in both the beekeeping and agriculture sectors.

  Kartika Tamara Liotard (GUE/NGL), in writing. – (NL) This agenda item was given a sweet title: ‘honeybees’. However, what I find more important for our food supply than just quality honey is the role of bees as pollinators. Bees are tiny, but essential for agriculture and our ecosystem. I would like to reiterate today that this Parliament should not ignore any possible cause of the massive bee deaths, no matter how forceful – and, I fear, no matter how effective – the industry lobby might be. That means that we need to search intensively for the origin of the parasite, for the Varroa mite. Nor should we be quick to rule out the lethal impact of ‘plant protection products’ – in other words pesticides – nor, indeed, the broad consequences of GMO cultivation and its monocultures, the radiation of GSM traffic, climate change or particulate matter from diesel engines which could subtly disrupt the navigation of bees. Given the great importance of environmental protection and food safety, which is what is at stake here, it is inappropriate of this House to laugh off the possible consequences. Producers, including those of genetically modified material, should not hinder scientific research, but cooperate with it. Can we, just once, not think about pursuing profit, but about the environment, food supply, animal welfare and hobby beekeepers? Bees are not just bees in our lives, they are also the bee-all and end-all of our lives.

  Alajos Mészáros (PPE), in writing. – (SK) Beekeeping is a traditional activity in the countryside, which quite often ensures a side income for rural households. In Central Europe, the biodiversity of flora is relatively well preserved, and it enables high-quality flower honey to be produced, and also meadow honey, without making bigger investments. Under such circumstances, this sector is able to supply honey as a truly natural product suitable for consumption by our citizens. The prices are, of course, higher than in certain parts of the world outside of Europe, but in the end, its higher and purer quality is also a supplementary source of nutrition for the population.

An excessive openness of the market to products from other countries would result in the inability of beekeepers to compete with the pressure of cheaper but not really top quality honey originating from professionally operated beekeeping farms outside of Europe, where the use of antibiotics is allowed. In the event of it not being possible to preserve the native bee family lines, there would be the danger of their replacement with bee family lines or kinds which cannot be admissible in countries with a high population density, with a subsequent negative effect on biodiversity and also on the health of bees.

Such a situation could cause serious damage to the interests of our beekeepers. Central Europe has all the conditions for producing high-quality honey as a natural product. Any potential further quantitative needs may be covered by imports from other parts of the world under clearly defined conditions and with appropriate labelling for domestic consumers.

22. Demographic change and its consequences for the cohesion policy (short presentation)

  President. – The next item is the report by Kerstin Westphal, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Development, on demographic change and its consequences for the future cohesion policy of the EU (2010/2157(INI)) (A7-0350/2011).

  Kerstin Westphal, rapporteur. – (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, demographic change is one of the most important themes in our times. For example, we know that every second girl born in Germany today will live to see their 100th birthday. My 13-year-old daughter was happy when she heard this news. However politicians must naturally also respond to this fact, drawing conclusions and establishing general political conditions.

My report, which will be the subject of a vote tomorrow, deals with some of these conclusions and the associated general conditions. It does not deal with social issues such as pensions. This is quite simply beyond the remit of the Committee on Regional Development. What it does consider, however, is the question of what European cohesion policy can do and how we can organise future cohesion policy in order to respond to the pressing issues. I would like to draw attention to four areas mentioned in the report.

Firstly: we need to tailor European cohesion policy more closely than ever to demographic change. Demographic change continues to play quite an important role in the Europe 2020 strategy and in the legislative proposals. Now, as we come to implement the strategy, we must ensure that the topic remains on the agenda.

The second area relates to infrastructure: we need infrastructure suitable to the needs of older people in order to avoid social exclusion. This includes accessibility to public buildings, for example. This move would also benefit other groups, such as families with small children or people with disabilities. At the same time, we need to make areas affected by emigration more attractive, particularly to young families.

The third area relates to older people, children and families. More and more older people live in the various regions of Europe. Regional policy must respond to this fact. For me, this also means promoting so-called multi-generational housing, as well as European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and European Social Fund (ESF) support in the social and health care sectors. Also, when it comes to the prevention of emigration, I believe that well-qualified full-time day care for children plays a very important role. It is a pity that the majority in the committee were not in favour of providing free child care. I would have liked to see much more courage here.

The fourth area of concern is employment. Our prime concern here must be to combat unemployment among women and young people. We have a cohort of young women who are the best-educated generation in Europe of all time. If these women are denied employment opportunities, then we could be accused of being responsible ourselves for creating the shortage of specialist professionals. It is also important that we should make much more use of the knowledge and experience of older people. Appropriate structures must also be established for this purpose in the regions.

I believe we all agree that we need to take an active approach by shaping demographic change rather than just managing it. European regional policy can make a huge contribution here. I would like to thank all the members of the committee who have worked on this report. This has been a long journey and several people have grown old and even retired while the work went on. The result has been worth the effort, however. I think we have produced a good report and I hope that the majority will vote in favour at tomorrow’s plenary.

  Anna Záborská (PPE). – (SK) Mr President, there are two reasons for demographic changes: people are living longer and there are far fewer births than before. This report is intended to find a solution to the needs of an ageing generation. It mentions only superficially the measures which could help to increase birth rates. In regions with dwindling populations, families with a higher number of children represent a valuable asset. Despite this fact, the report proposes measures that contribute to the break-up of families – full-day programmes for children or increasing irrational quotas on the gainful employment of women.

The Committee on Women’s Rights also proposed including in the report a requirement to evaluate the invisible work of women; in caring for family members, managing the household and bringing up and educating children. We proposed that Eurostat investigate the importance of the family as regards cohesion policy. We wanted this report to recognise the unpaid work of women when calculating health insurance and pensions. Unfortunately, none of these proposals have been accepted, which is why I sometimes see this report as social engineering.

  Phil Prendergast (S&D). – Mr President, demographic change in the EU is a fact, and adapting to it has become a key priority for the future. There have been demographic changes due to low fertility rates, an ageing population, migratory patterns and a population shift from rural to urban areas.

These changes in our population levels and patterns have brought a number of challenges and opportunities with them. We must make sure we are able to address these challenges and take advantage of these opportunities. Member States can use the Structural Funds to develop strategies to manage demographic change. We must ensure that we have up-to-date information on demographic changes within our Member States and especially within the different regions in our states. This information can then be used for the redistribution of Structural Funds to the areas in greatest need. Housing upkeep and social integration of the elderly in Ireland and elsewhere certainly must be a priority.

  Gerard Batten (EFD). – Mr President, demographics, of course, is a fascinating subject, and behind great historical developments and changes there is often an untold demographic story.

Britain is now undergoing a massive population explosion which, until very recently, went unreported. When Tony Blair became Prime Minister in 1997, we had a population of just over 58 million. That population has now grown to over 62.4 million and, on current trends, the population will grow to over 70 million by 2030 and thereafter spiral ever upwards.

Demographers calculate that all this unsustainable population growth is down to migration and births to migrants.

There is nothing wrong with some appropriate, moderate and sustainable immigration, but the UK is adding over one million people to its net population every four to five years. England is more densely populated than India, China and Japan.

Britain does not have a cohesion policy, but if it did, it would leave the European Union and regain control of its borders and its immigration policy.

  Miroslav Mikolášik (PPE). – (SK) Mr President, European society is faced with a number of demographic challenges, which will intensify in the coming decades. The increasing life expectancy in the European Union, of course, makes me happy. However, as far as the low birth rate is concerned, I am aware of the need to review many European and national policies, above all, in the fields of health care, pension systems, support for families and intergenerational solidarity.

I am surprised that the authors here are not able to generally support complete families consisting of a father and a mother, because it is crystal clear that many more children are born in such families than in single-parent families or in any other type of cohabitation.

Concrete measures will need to be taken in European regions and cities faced with the new challenges and also with the new opportunities. This is why it is extremely important that a debate is held on the demographic changes and the latest trends at a regional and local level. It is therefore necessary to use cohesion policy resources in accordance with these indicators too.

  Radvilė Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė (PPE). – (LT) Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Kerstin Westphal, for her excellent report and constructive work overall. I had the opportunity to be shadow rapporteur on this subject. Europe’s society is ageing and it has the lowest population growth rate in the world. The Commission stresses the importance of demographic change. It is, of course, a threat, but also an opportunity. In their operational programmes for the 2007-2013 programming period, the Member States plan to spend 8.5% of structural fund appropriations. Regional policy is therefore a key instrument in tackling demographic change. There thus has to be coordination at all levels for a more flexible structural assistance policy, and local authorities and local communities need to be more involved in decision making. Demographic change is a complex issue, and it is therefore equally important for there to be balanced consideration of the needs of children, young families and the elderly. The report focuses more on ways of putting out the fire, but the preventative measures mentioned must also be implemented effectively, and in the future, we will still have to review pension systems which were established and worked effectively at a time when demographic trends were quite different.

  Katarína Neveďalová (S&D). – (SK) Mr President, the cohesion policy of the European Union has to reflect the current status and future development in the Union in order to be effective. This is why I warmly welcome the own-initiative report of our colleague, Ms Westphal. The European population is ageing; average life expectancy is increasing and birth rates are declining. Demographic change is often regarded as a problem; however, it may lead to new challenges in many regions of the European Union. Regions and cities, however, need their own initiatives and strategies, but guidelines and coordination are also necessary.

Regional policy is a key instrument for solving the problem of demographic change, so I am voting for the draft reform of the structural policy, where I think it is important to establish a social infrastructure and help for the ageing population. Of course, I also welcome the plans for urban development and the strategy for care for every generation; it is also important to provide adequate support for children, young people, the middle-aged and the older generation and families by ensuring their active participation in the life of the community.

Furthermore, it is necessary to focus on the more vulnerable sections of the community – children, school-leavers, the unemployed, women, people in poverty, immigrants and elderly people. For such a policy to be effective, of course, the coordination of bodies at all levels is essential as well.

  Czesław Adam Siekierski (PPE). – (PL) Mr President, demographic change is a problem in many countries and regions. In Europe, we have a low birth rate and a high percentage of migrants, consisting mainly of young people moving from rural areas to large, wealthy cities. The author of the report believes that structural policy in particular should take up the huge challenges posed by demographic change and suggests six main focuses. I will concentrate on three of them. Firstly, the Structural Funds must be better adapted to the challenges of demographic change. Demographic indicators should be used for the regional distribution of Structural Funds.

Secondly, the rapporteur identifies major challenges for both rural areas and urban areas with regard to infrastructure. Depopulation and the social exclusion of the elderly need to be prevented, and urban planning must adapt. Structural Funds can help here. Cities and municipalities must be attractive to their residents, including by means of child- and family-friendly infrastructure and good local public transport. Increasing the female employment rate is a core issue for handling demographic change. Youth unemployment must also be reduced.

  John Dalli, Member of the Commission. – Mr President, I would like to thank Ms Westphal for this report. This report represents a precious contribution for the European Commission. As the report acknowledges, there are great differences in the demographic trends in Europe which some regions are going to experience. Therefore, a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach will not work.

Cohesion policy already supports demographic change through actions such as active labour market policies, investment in entrepreneurship, modernisation of social and health sector infrastructures, kindergartens and housing, as well as support for the economic and social integration of immigrants and minorities. Regional responses to demographic change should address the challenges through integrated approaches. The cohesion policy legislative package for the period 2014-2020, adopted by the Commission on 6 October, will offer a framework to fund a wide variety of investments to tackle demographic change.

In this regard, the Commission has adopted a number of common provisions for the three funds included in the package: the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, and the Cohesion Fund. The provisions related to the local development approach, integrated territorial investment and sustainable urban development will allow further flexibility and additional possibilities for funding to address demographic change at regional and local level.

Active and healthy ageing is critical for a sustainable European society. In order to face the demographic trend to a further ageing population, the EU has to reduce the differences in terms of health and must contribute to improving access to health services.

The Commission is now drawing up a common strategic framework that will cover the three funds mentioned, plus the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the European Fisheries Fund. The framework will translate the objectives of the EU 2020 strategy into key actions that will be supported by the different funds. It will address the multi-dimensional aspects of demographic change and will determine how the different funds can better collaborate in this field.

  President. – The debate is closed.

The vote will take place tomorrow (Tuesday, 15 November 2011).

Written statements (Rule 149)

  João Ferreira (GUE/NGL), in writing. – (PT) The increase in average life expectancy is an advance that has been made possible by scientific and technical development and the progress of civilisation during the last century: an advance which, sure enough, confronts us with new challenges as well as new opportunities. Within the European Union, this same advance is being used as a pretext for imposing retrograde measures: in other words, for calling into question the rights and entitlements won by the workers and the people of various countries, such as social security systems. At the same time, many of the challenges are not being met as they should: these certainly include the challenges of cohesion policy, regional development, the fight against desertification, and the strengthening and diversification of public services, to name but a few. This report deals with the important question of using Structural Funds, namely, the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund, in order to face up to some of these challenges, especially in the countries and regions worst affected by ageing and depopulation. An increase in the absorption rate of these funds is crucial, and all the more important if we realise that many of these countries and regions are confronted with unacceptable so-called austerity programmes which shrink investment to poverty levels, impeding the full use of the funds by those who most need them and at the very moment when they need them more than ever.

  Filiz Hakaeva Hyusmenova (ALDE), in writing. – (BG) Demographic change has a serious impact on the economic and social situation in Europe. The actions required to resolve its adverse consequences are one of the main tasks facing the EU. An ageing population requires suitable measures for increasing the opportunities for elderly people to participate actively in society, for using their knowledge and experience, and for providing them with a decent existence. At the same time, it is also important to increase the support for women and young people by providing them with better access to training, qualifications and labour market integration, and ensuring a work-life balance. Efforts are still required to improve living conditions and the level of employment in every region and to foster their specific potential so as to avoid a high concentration of population in some areas and depopulation of others. The opportunities for curbing the adverse consequences of demographic change should be analysed and used, including support from the cohesion policy instruments. Good coordination among measures funded by the ESF, ERDF and EAFRD would significantly help tackle these problems. I think that additional technical assistance needs to be provided to the hardest hit regions to ensure that they have sufficient capacity to implement Structural Funds projects.

  Marie-Thérèse Sanchez-Schmid (PPE), in writing. – (FR) Europe is currently experiencing the most serious economic crisis it has seen since 1929. Member States are faced with intense pressure from the markets, which doubt our ability to return to healthy growth and reduce our deficits. Therefore, it is not the time to ‘spend more’ but to ‘spend better’. Europe can no longer afford to waste taxpayers’ money on needless grants. It should be the driver of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Cohesion policy, still too underrated, could provide leverage for the effective investment needed for the embodiment of European solidarity and for the portrayal of a Europe that works to achieve growth and development across its Member States. I would like to raise two points. Simplification must be a central tenet of the next programming period. While the ex ante and ex post conditions can ensure greater efficiency of funds, in no case should they increase the amount of red tape that recipients face. In addition, the Europe 2020 strategy will only be effective if it receives political support across all levels of governance and from the citizens. I am disappointed that culture, sport and industrial policy were regrettably missing from the proposed thematic menu.

  Georgios Stavrakakis (S&D) , in writing. – (EL) Without doubt, demographic change is a huge challenge which the regions are required to meet and it will be an even greater challenge in future. Population ageing, the decline in the young population in rural areas and the massive pressure on large towns are just some aspects of the problem. The Structural Funds have earmarked funds of EUR 30 billion for the regions for the period from 2007-2013 for actions in connection with demographic change. Within this framework, we need to find ways of optimising and making effective use of these funds. However, the challenges of demographic change cannot be addressed under a single EU policy. Actions are needed not only in the employment and infrastructure sectors, but also in the fields of education, health care, social benefits, social innovation, immigration policy and action to reconcile family life and work. Within this framework, therefore, the demand that we have repeatedly voiced in the European Parliament for stronger synergies between all EU policies and the corresponding funds is proving to be of vital importance. It is only through coordinated actions that we can formulate comprehensive responses to multi-dimensional problems such as the problem of demographic change.

  Valdemar Tomaševski (ECR), in writing. – (PL) The world’s population has grown to more than seven billion. Paradoxically, despite the worldwide increase in the birth rate, Europe is ageing, and the name ‘the old continent’ is becoming painfully literal. Population decline in Europe would be even more pronounced were it not for migration – more people settle in the Union than leave it, but this gives us a false sense of security because too few native Europeans are being born, too few to ensure our demographic security and reverse the trend of our ageing society. We should ask ourselves why this problem is affecting Europe and whether we can do anything about it.

One should not explain the problem of an ageing Europe without taking account of the increase in the average life expectancy of Europeans, which is indeed a pleasing phenomenon. Nevertheless, the main problem is the dramatic decline in the number of births. This problem is certainly not solved by the influx of immigrants. The core of the problem lies in the shift away from Christian values in Europe since the Second World War, especially as regards promoting the family. Instead of encouraging motherhood and fatherhood, the family has been sacrificed over the years in favour of so-called free relationships, abortion on demand, and even euthanasia in some countries. Today, we are reaping the poisoned fruits of this policy: a falling birth rate, an ageing society and the collapse of the pension system in Europe. To reverse this worrying trend, which will lead to the extinction of Europe, we must return to Christian values in Europe and resolutely support the family.

23. State aid rules on services of general economic interest (short presentation)

  President. – The next item is the report by Peter Simon, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on reform of the EU State aid rules on services of general economic interest [2011/2146(INI)] (A7-0371/2011).

  Peter Simon, rapporteur. – (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, public services are a fundamental pillar of our European social model and not only play a key role for the individual citizen, but are also of enormous importance for the wellbeing of society at large. For this reason, the following question should be uppermost in our minds when we come to reform the EU State aid rules on services of general economic interest. What conditions are needed to ensure the highest possible service quality and, on the other hand, to guarantee universal access for all levels within the population?

The key to the provision and organisation of such high-quality public services is certainty among service providers and public authorities in relation to the general legal conditions, on the one hand, and greater proportionality in the regulations, on the other, so that more attention is paid to the diversity of the various kinds of public service and so that administrative effort is reduced. Thus, the EU State aid rules can only be reformed if the special function of public services is taken into account and if the subsidiarity principle is strictly observed.

In addition, a legal framework for public services should be established for a sufficient degree of legal certainty. For us in the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, the legal basis for this would be Article 14 of the Treaty of Lisbon. However, as we know, opinion in the European Parliament has been divided on this issue for many years. Nonetheless, we believe that this report has succeeded in its objective of finding a compromise that could be accepted by almost all sides.

The administrative effort involved in managing compensatory payments to those providing public services is currently too high. This is particularly true for small authorities and service providers. The increase we have called for in the thresholds for exemption from mandatory notification of the European Commission when claiming compensatory payments would provide initial relief. The State aid rules must be designed so that the administrative effort expended by the local authorities and service providers is proportionate to the potential impact on the internal European market and on competition. The special de minimis arrangements we propose provide an important basis for this, involving a general exception to the regulations for purely local services and social services.

To ensure that we cater more precisely to the special role of social services, we would call for a clear definition and protection of their function and character. In addition, our report also clearly rejects the proposal from the European Commission that efficiency criteria should be introduced for services of general interest as a prerequisite for establishing their compatibility with EU competition rules. The European Commission is going beyond its remit here, as it is simply responsible for controlling State aid. On the other hand, the definition of economic conditions is solely a matter for the Member States and can only be regulated on a European level with the cooperation of the European Parliament.

In this context, I would like to close by thanking my colleagues, the shadow rapporteurs, for excellent cross-party cooperation in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. The clear vote in favour of my report at committee level is evidence of this results-based, solutions-oriented cooperation. I am therefore confident that in tomorrow’s plenary vote, we shall also succeed in sending out a clear signal from the European Parliament to the European Commission demanding sustainable, future-proofed general conditions in the area of public services.

  Alajos Mészáros (PPE). – (HU) Mr President, I agree that services of general economic interest should not be restrictive in nature and that they should be accessible to all citizens regardless of income and resources. I believe the role of local, regional and national authorities in the provision of services that are affordable for citizens is an important one. I agree that the provisions on State aid must adhere strictly to the subsidiarity principle, and they must guarantee freedom of choice for local and regional authorities as regards their methods of organising, funding and performing public service tasks. State aid should stimulate local entrepreneurship and the local economy, and help to create jobs at local level. There is a need to upgrade the infrastructure and ensure that access to it is not limited, especially in the regions where it is most lacking. There is a need to secure high-quality services in a resource-efficient way and at prices affordable to all citizens. And, above all, there is a need for sustainable, high-quality jobs.

  António Fernando Correia De Campos (S&D). – (PT) Mr President, Commissioner, this report by Peter Simon is a very balanced one. It advocates making use of services of general economic interest (SGEIs), within the framework of the Union’s shared values, as promoters of rights and of economic, social and territorial cohesion.

There is indeed a legislative structure, but this is still open to a great deal of legal uncertainty, and the principle of subsidiarity must be defended.

Some very positive features of this report are the clear distinction between economic and non-economic activities, the reference to SGEIs at the local and regional level which do not affect competition in the internal market, the reference to project bonds and to the de minimis rules for situations in which SGEIs operate on a limited local scale, and I must also mention the status of SGEI providers, which is varied enough to include associations, foundations, community and voluntary organisations, NGOs and social enterprises.

Finally, it may be taken as read that the criterion for the quality and efficiency of SGEIs must be tied to the principle of subsidiarity.

  Jaroslav Paška (EFD). – (SK) Mr President, since, at the end of this year, several decisions and provisions amending Union law in the field of State aid for services of general economic interest will cease to have effect, it will be necessary to revise these regulations.

Experience from the application of existing rules shows that the administrative burden resulting from their application has been disproportionately high, mainly for smaller local bodies, and many of the key concepts have caused misunderstanding and legal uncertainty.

As such, when revising the regulations, we must ensure that the new legal instruments are simpler, clearer and easier to understand. They have to be appropriately set for the environment in which they are going to be applied, in order to ensure that they can be utilised in a way that is equally efficient and effective in the environment of smaller local bodies as in more complex cases. This is the only way in which we can contribute to a wider spread of necessary services of general economic interest throughout the European Union.

  Evelyn Regner (S&D). – (DE) Mr President, thank you very much for allowing me to speak again. Commissioners, firstly, I would like to thank Mr Simon for taking a cross-party approach and, above all, for his great commitment to his report. He has succeeded in framing a demand that the Commission should present a communication containing specific measures by the end of 2011.

This brings me to the drawback that Mr Simon has also already mentioned. Of course Parliament must also be included in the legislative process according to Article 14. The Commission is constantly calling for transparency from all participants in the process, while itself endeavouring to use its political clout to rush through its opinions in the policy-making processes. The fact is, however, that Europe operates on a grass-roots basis, taking its cue from local and regional authorities. It is therefore very surprising to find that the people in the regions and the local decision makers are often pointedly attacked and marginalised by the policies pursued by the Commission.

This Community framework meddles in the authority of the Member States to define and organise their own parameters. It is for this reason that I wish to draw attention to the principle of ‘united in diversity’ that operates within the European Union and to call on the Commission to pay a little more attention to Article 14 and to the options that this permits.

  Zuzana Roithová (PPE). – (CS) Mr President, there are significant differences between states with regard to the definition and range of services of general economic interest and their exemption from the rules of the internal market. It is necessary to support the Commission in its attempt to track legislative rules in the Member States. I think we should insist on the simplification of rules for the uptake of State aid and support the Commission in its efforts to introduce, within the framework of opportunities provided through subsidiarity, a greater level of transparency and checks on the proportionality of the level of subsidies. In particular, higher-volume state or communal procurements for public service companies are frequently the source of a high level of corruption. However, the Commission, too, should amend its procedures and eliminate suspicion and complaints about disproportionate subsidies and corruption on a much more consistent basis. The Commission often tends to dispense with formality and relies mainly on the opinions of ministerial officials, who conceal the disproportionate or unauthorised level of state subsidies in ad-hoc reports. I personally have seen evidence of this while reading the replies to my questions.

  Elena Băsescu (PPE). – (RO) Mr President, services of general economic interest contribute to Member States’ prosperity and economic competitiveness. They are also crucial to the fight against societal inequalities. However, compensation paid for providing them should not distort competition or harm other companies. The subsidiarity principle must be strictly observed.

I would draw attention to Protocol 26 to the Lisbon Treaty. Under it, Member States have competence to provide public services. I believe it is necessary to clarify the State aid rules. In Romania, these rules are to be simplified for small-scale, local public services. At the same time, the European Union should support Member States’ efforts to modernise services of general economic interest and adapt them to the requirements of the population. In Romania, public services are regulated by specific legislation relating to each field.

  John Dalli, Member of the Commission. – Mr President, on behalf of Vice-President Almunia, I would first of all like to thank Mr Simon for his report on the reform of the EU State aid rules for services of general economic interest and would also like to thank the ECON, ITRE and IMCO committees and all their members for their contributions to this report.

We are convinced that public services play a key role in the European social model because they make an important contribution to social stability and territorial cohesion. This is why services of general economic interest are one of the key priorities in the State aid field during our mandate. We are glad that there is such an intense debate going on about this topic between Parliament, other EU institutions and all stakeholders. We particularly welcome Parliament’s contribution to this debate. It reflects the importance which Parliament attaches to establishing a clear legal framework for services of general economic interest.

Let me recall that our reform is based on three objectives: clarification, simplification and a more diversified approach. We set out these objectives in detail in our Communication in March. Since then, we have published draft texts that show how we think the objectives should be translated into rules.

The reply to the public consultation on the draft texts has been rich and fruitful. The direction of the reform is broadly shared by all, although stakeholders have different views on the details of the changes. This is why, in the coming weeks, we will work to further improve on the delivery of the three objectives.

The report by the European Parliament could not have come at a better time. It has been able to take account of our draft texts and thus to provide us suggestions on how to further improve our texts. It will prove a particularly valuable contribution to the reform.

Let me briefly focus on three points in Mr Simon’s report:

A major tool for simplification in our reform is the new de minimis regulation. The report suggests that a threshold based on the size of the municipality is not necessary to restrict the de minimis regulation to small local services, and that a three-year approach would be more flexible than the current one-year threshold. As I have already emphasised, no decision has yet been taken as to what kind of thresholds are most appropriate. We are open to suggestions and appreciate the views of all stakeholders, in particular, the European Parliament’s opinion.

Secondly, the report requests that additional social services be covered by the decision. Social services play a very important role in our society and there is less need for very strict scrutiny. This is why, under the more diversified approach, they benefit from exemption from notification and more lenient compatibility criteria of the decision. I am open to assessing evidence and arguments to improve the scope and treatment of social services where justified.

Thirdly, Parliament considers that the Commission cannot define efficiency criteria under State aid rules. Let me underline that the current drafts do not require undertakings to be efficient, nor do they allow the Commission to check for efficiency. The draft texts only require that undertakings be given incentives to improve their efficiency. I know that some of you are nevertheless afraid of such a change. However, those efficiency incentives only apply to large commercial SGEIs that we assess under the framework. They are also largely supported by service providers and other stakeholders.

Let me recall again why we are so keen to improve our rules: in the present situation, given the tight budgetary constraints of all Member States, we want everyone to be given the possibility to continue enjoying accessible, affordable and efficient public services.

Thank you very much once again for your contribution to this reform.

  President. – The debate is closed.

The vote will take place tomorrow (Tuesday, 15 November 2011).

Written statements (Rule 149)

  George Sabin Cutaş (S&D), in writing. – (RO) Guaranteeing public services of high quality and accessible to all citizens is a vital component of the European social model. Public services meet the daily needs of Europeans and play an important role in ensuring equal opportunities and respect for fundamental rights. The European Commission is seeking to simplify the State aid rules applicable to services of general economic interest, including public transport management, the supply of water and heating, the construction of social housing and the provision of postal services. The introduction of simplified legislative rules in this area would reduce the administrative burden on public authorities. However, future reform must not jeopardise universal access to services which mitigate the social impact of the economic crisis, thereby protecting the vulnerable, under the pretext of making processes more efficient. A narrower definition of the category of services of general economic interest and the establishment of low thresholds for the volume of compensation permitted would facilitate the liberalisation of public services, and the liberalisation of public services does mean sacrificing the rights of citizens and deepening economic inequalities.

  Jiří Havel (S&D), in writing. – (CS) The submitted report deals with the Commission’s proposal concerning the amendment of the package on services of general economic interest (SGEI), which play an important role in the framework of the EU’s common values, in particular, due to the fact that they promote fundamental rights and social, economic and territorial cohesion, through combating social inequalities. Furthermore, SGEI also contribute significantly to the economic performance and competitiveness of the Member States, which seems to be very important from the perspective of current problems in the euro area. Last but not least, SGEI facilitate the successful implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy and should enable development targets to be reached, in particular, in the fields of employment, education and social inclusion. I welcome the intention of the Commission as regards their simplification, greater clarity and greater proportionality. In the social services sector, I believe that it is of crucial importance that in the case of social services of general economic interest which are locally limited due to their character, special higher threshold levels of compensation be introduced, with a negligible effect on trade between Member States. Finally, I am also in favour of general exceptions from the reporting obligation in other fields of social services of general economic interest, for example, in the arrangement of care for elderly and disabled citizens and health care. In general, I believe that the report submitted by Peter Simon analyses this particular issue with great professionalism.

  Sirpa Pietikäinen (PPE), in writing. – (FI) The reform of the EU State aid rules on services of general economic interest is an especially important task for Parliament. Economic services of this kind are among the most important common values of the EU. Social services of general interest also have an important role in safeguarding fundamental rights and promoting equality of opportunity. We have to remember that this reform is not just about economics: it is essential to ensure that it provides support for social, economic and territorial cohesion in the EU. Such economic services are, for example, housing, health care and transport services.

24. Dates of forthcoming sittings: see Minutes

25. Closure of the sitting

(The sitting closed at 21.45)