(A3-102/91 - von Wogau)

Tuesday, 14 May - Reporting on the positive aspects of progress towards the completion of the internal market programme Karl von Wogau (G, EPP) told the House that 70% of all the necessary decisions had now been taken by Council and of these a further 70% had been transposed into national legislation by the member states. Since the coming into being of the SEA and with it majority voting in 1987, decision-making had been speeded up and also included a Parliamentary input in the form of 32% of amendments adopted at second reading incorporated into the final text. And, he added, this reflected substantive changes as could be seen, for example, with the weapons directive.

But on the negative side there were delays, especially in those areas requiring unanimous agreement such as taxation.

For the Socialist Group Lode Van Outrive (B, Soc) was concerned about the lack of progress in another area requiring unanimity - the social dimens-ion. He pointed out that recent studies showed that while capital and wealth holdings had increased considerably for the small minority, the same could not be said with regard to employment conditions for the majority. There was, he said, making a special plea for a fairer distribution of resources, too much job insecurity.

He took the Commission to task for what he felt wwas too soft an approach to employers and sought a commitment in the reformed Treaty to a proper industr-ial policy.

Ursula Braun-Moser (G, EPP), on the other hand, complained of too much interventionism creeping into the single market programme and too many detailed bureaucratic regulations - a charger later denied by Commissioner Bangemann, who in turn accused Parliament of trying to introduce too much detail into legislation through some of its amendments.

Mrs Braun-Moser warned against the social dimension taking on too much of a priority and making EC firms uncompetitive.

Rui Amaral (P, LDR) pointed to areas like services, transport and energy supply, where he felt progress was at a snail's pace while Dieter Rogallo (G, Soc) was concerned to see that come what may border controls would be well and truly abolished by 1 January, 1993.

But for Ejner Christiansen (Dk, Soc) the single market programme would amount to nothing if it did not deal with the questions of unemployment and social and housing conditions. He took Mr von Wogau to task for criticising Denmark's high rates of taxation which, he said, were necessary to maintain high welfare benefits.

Replying for the Commission, Martin Bangemann was optimistic about some kind of transitional arrangement on VAT being reached to enable border controls to be abolished. But he did point out that there was still a question mark as far as the four peripheral countries, i.e. the UK, Ireland,, Denmark and Greece were concerned since they continued to claim that they had not legally approved legislation to abolish frontier checks. But, he added, the Commission did have something up its sleeve - recourse to article 100(b) which refers to those situations where agreement has not been reached by 1992 and reads:

'The Council, acting in accordance with the provisions of Article 100a, may decide that the provisions in force in a Member State must be recognised as being equivalent to those applied by another Member State.'

While admitting that the Ceccini report had been somewhat optimistic in its estimation of the number of jobs to be created by the internal market programm-e, the Commissioner did say that the programme now carried a 'dynamic' of its own that had percolated throughout industry. He warned against attempts by some Socialists to create what he termed an artificial distinction between consumers and industry and concluded by saying that policies on telecommunications, energy and training would help peripheral areas.