Brussels, 16/09/2005 (Agence Europe) - On 13 September, the parliamentary committee on economic and monetary affairs adopted its own-initiative report on the directive relating to services in the internal market. Sahra Wagenknecht (GUE/NGL, Germany), rapporteur on this issue, called for her name to be withdrawn from the report because, as adopted, it no longer reflects her position. She denounces the attitude of the members of the EPP-ED and ALDE Groups that have refused to carry out preliminary negotiations on amendments to the compromise and have hardened their positions with a view to reaching results which, in her view, “go beyond the Commission's liberalisation plans”. The strategy adopted by these MEPs would consist in stepping up pressure with a view to the coming vote within the relevant internal market committee on substance (Gebhardt report) and to act as a counter-balance to the compromises reached in the other parliamentary committees (see EUROPE 8990, 8943, 8936 and 8910).
“In Brussels, the yellow and black coalition of neoliberalism is today a reality. Within the committee on economic and monetary affairs, any criticism to the Commission's proposal on services has been swept away by a majority of Liberals and Conservatives”, Ms Wagenknecht said in a press release. She above all slams the German Conservative MEPs who voted against all the exclusions from the scope of the directive so that the future directive does not provide any total exemption for the services of general interest (SGI) but includes gas, electricity and water, as well as the health, audiovisual and education sectors. According to Sahra Wagenknecht, the attitude of the Conservatives and the Liberals during this vote was identical.