Strasbourg, 14/01/2004 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday in Strasbourg, the European Parliament rapporteur on services of general interest, Philippe Herzog, concluded one year of work by managing to maintain support for public services although the plenary had confirmed it was more in favour of moving toward liberalisation (see yesterday's EUROPE pages 11 and 12 for the debate). At the time of the final vote, the rapporteur joined the 383 majority who voted in favour of his report. He was thus the only left-wing French national to approve the report. The French Left, with other members of the GUE/NGL (except for Messrs Blak and Puerta who voted with the rapporteur) and Greens/EFA Groups provided most of the 123 negative votes. Thirteen MEPs (including 6 French nationals: Messrs Esclopé, Berthu, Souchet, El Khadraoui, Rocard and Onesta) abstained. The dogmatic attitude of the French Left in this case appeared proportional to its loss of influence, when most of the amendments for the defence of public services came from the rapporteur, Luxembourg Socialist Robert Goebbels. Philippe Herzog confessed that at the end of the vote he had not seen many French last year. Although he understood that some of his colleagues could not endorse the paragraphs that made it up, as stressed at the beginning of the week by French Communist Sylviane Ainardi as "an ode to liberalisation", the rapporteur recognised that "many members of the European Popular Party had agreed to useful compromises".
Parliament is requesting the Commission to reach a decision by April 2004 on the legislative framework adopted in codecision but believes that the re-examination currently being carried out in the context of the Green Paper should not amend the approach followed at a sector level. Although it welcomed the liberalisation in telecommunications, post, transport and energy (273 for, 245 against, 16 abstentions), Parliament thinks that given the problems with liberalisation in certain sectors like the railways in the UK, it is necessary to assess, in a more open and contrasting way, the impact on jobs, user needs, safety, environment, social and territorial cohesion, before making commitments to new stages of the liberalisation process (amendment of Ms Ainardi adopted by 209 votes for, 233 against and 6 abstentions). Parliament is opposed to the liberalisation of the water and waste services (Amendment by Herzog, Ms Zrihen and Mr Desir adopted by 265 votes, 249 against, 11 abstentions). It reckons on the other hand that liberalisation is insufficient for the gas sector and that "the continuation of gradual liberalisation of the postal services on the basis of the Community notion of universal service was sensible if citizens could benefit at reasonable prices, reliable services for all". The adoption of the Goebbles amendment allowed for the suppression of the principle figuring in the report adopted by the economic committee according to which general interest service provision should be compatible with competition rules. The draft now includes action to carry out at a Community level has to guarantee the exercise of these services within the internal market and that it ensures competition rules are compatible with public service obligations (266 for, 253 against, 18 abstentions). This paragraph lays down that the Union can also support Member States and promote projects of general interest. Parliament excluded from the field of application, competition rules in education, public health, social housing, as well as general interest services linked to social security and social insertion (amendments from Greens/EFA).