[Documents/Docheader.htm]The current tendency by some European governments to favour “national champions” in industry, to the detriment of European and worldwide competition, economic progress and international harmony
Doc. 10238
29 June 2004Motion for a resolution
presented by Mr Sasi and othersThis motion has not been discussed in the Assembly and commits only the members who have signed it
1. Certain European governments at present show a worrying tendency to seek to promote “national champions” in various economic sectors via interventionist policies – as opposed to letting market principles prevail. All experience shows, however, that “national champions” rarely succeed, but instead lead to market distortions that harm consumers and economic development, cause extra tax burdens via subsidies and state guarantees and provoke international disharmony, also within Europe.
2. The Assembly in this context refers to its Resolution 997 (1993) on “European industrial competitiveness in a global context”, in which it called for a “coherent, comprehensive and long-term strategy for a 'European policy for industry' which is general and neutral with regard to economic sectors and the nationality of companies, in order to permit the most viable companies to prosper and compete on fair and equal terms both within individual companies, groups of companies, or worldwide”. The Resolution further called on “the governments of Council of Europe member states and on the European Union … to refrain from increasing the overall burdens on European industry through legislation and regulations which put it at a competitive disadvantage vis-�-vis other parts of the world”.
3. Today - a decade after this Assembly Resolution, in an enlarged European Union and an increasingly economically and politically integrated larger Europe – such a strategy has yet to be formulated, let alone implemented, while instead economic nationalism seems to be on the rise in some countries. It is essential for continued and harmonious European economic development and global competitiveness that the kind of neutral, non-discriminatory and non-nationalistic strategy called for in Resolution 997 can now be agreed.
Signed [1]:
SASI Kimmo, Finland, EPP/CD
ANTTILA Sirkka-Liisa, Finland, LDR
CEKUOLIS Jonas, Lithuania, LDR
DROMBERG Kaarina, Finland, EPP/CD
GRIFFITHS Jane, United Kingdom, SOC
HAUPERT Norbert, Luxembourg, EPP/CD
HERKEL Andres, Estonia, EPP/CD
H�GMARK Anders G., Sweden, EPP/CD
Baroness HOOPER, United Kingdom, EDG
J��TTEENM�KI Anneli, Finland, LDR
JONAS Klaus Werner, Germany, SOC
KRISTOVSKIS Valdis Girts, Latvia, EDG
LINDBLAD G�ran, Sweden, EPP/CD
MAISSEN Theo, Switzerland, EPP/CD
PINTAT ROSSELL Clara, Andorra, LDR
STEFANOV Dimitar, Bulgaria, LDR
WOHLWEND Renate, Liechtenstein, EPP/CD
ZAPFL-HELBLING Rosmarie, Switzerland, EPP/CD
SOC
EPP
EDG
LDR
UEL
NRSocialist Group
Group of the European People’s Party
European Democratic Group
Liberal, Democratic and Reformers’ Group
Group of the Unified European Left
Not registered in a group