Mr President, the four chief objectives which the EU countries’ governments endorsed in November of last year and which were mentioned earlier here today were as follows: that care should be taken to ensure that it is worthwhile working and guaranteeing oneself a secure income; that pensions should be guaranteed and pension arrangements made sustainable; that social integration should be promoted; and that sustainable, high-quality health care should be guaranteed. These are four goals which have been worded in such broad terms that everyone must be able to support them. Having a group of high-ranking officials as the focal point for the pooling of experience and for the coordination and evaluation of the ways in which social and labour market policies are being developed is also something we can all benefit from. The Commission’s communication, which we are discussing today and which was put by for a decision by the Council in November, is a well-balanced report on how we can obtain a more professional debate and more knowledge of the challenges faced by the Member States in the field of social policy over the next few years when we have ageing populations and are experiencing the effects of the enlargement of the Union. We now already have major social problems and major social costs to find from the public budgets, which is a problem for many Member States. If reforms are not got under way, we are in danger of eroding the economic basis of social policy, and a strong and competitive economy is now undoubtedly the most secure basis for effective social security. It is therefore only reasonable to put these subjects on the agenda. In the debate about coordination of social policy in the EU, we often use the expression social convergence. As liberals, we can support this concept when it means that we in the EU are to establish broad common objectives with which the individual countries then seek to comply by means of their own national social policies. It is not, therefore, about harmonisation but about common objectives. It is, of course, a fact that the EU countries have different ways of organising social policy. We have different traditions and there are differences in culture and, in spite of there being many points of similarity, there are also major differences between one country and another in the nature and extent of the social problems concerned. It is therefore important to emphasise that social policy is a national concern. National policy is, of course, subject to a number of common parameters. That is the case with minimum social entitlements, which are established by treaty. It is true in regard to guaranteeing the free movement of labour without loss of social entitlements. It applies to the fact of our having to coordinate our economies; and it applies in the case of economic cooperation. So coordination and cooperation are facts of life. But convergence should be about goals, not means. I should also like to thank the rapporteur, Jan Andersson, for his report and for his very constructive contribution to the attempt to reconcile different positions and to secure support for his report. I can support the report, but there are a few points which are not completely to my taste. I do not agree with the requirement that the Commission should intervene in regard to what is referred to as unfair competition between social and tax systems, if interference of this kind is to be used to stem the tide of new thinking and to restrict development and the process of making our social systems more efficient, or else to prevent a reduction in the unduly high tax burden in many EU countries. I am sceptical about the detailed regulations that might result from the Commission’s having to deal with the scope and quality of child care and care of the elderly, and I am sceptical about the value of a common poverty threshold. Dialogue and the coordination of social policy are to be commended, but we should not lump all nations together as if they were the same. There should be room for a multiplicity of solutions.

Political group: ELDR