Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, following the Enron affair – and this is one of the points on which I agree with Mrs Villiers – a number of people in Europe thought that this sort of thing was a feature of American, but not of European, capitalism. Well, the Parmalat affair demonstrates that wayward developments of a similar kind are not alien to twenty-first century European capitalism. We are, in fact, confronting something with implications far beyond those of the Parmalat case and concerning the adjustment of tools that, in reality, we have not basically altered since the nineteenth century, whereas the nature of capitalism has, for its part, changed so much. In the nineteenth century, capital and labour were the opposing forces in companies. Since then, capital has dispersed and, with great ingenuity, has discovered a thousand and one ways of making its presence felt. Meanwhile, there is no European or world market for labour, which continues to rely on its strength alone. We are concerned with four major problems: the issue of tax havens, that of the way in which capital is organised, that of the separation between financing and production and, finally, that of the fate of salaried and other employees. Nothing less. In this regard, I would thank you, Commissioner, for the proposals you are putting forward, for they are a small seed planted on the long road towards regulating world capitalism. That being said, I should like to emphasise two or three difficulties arising, in my view, from the proposals you have made. I take it that you do not share the view of Mrs Villiers, for whom the regulation of capitalism would require nothing more than having a policeman looking over the shoulders of every banker. As for myself, I agree with her on one point: there will always be scoundrels. There are, and always will be, scoundrels in the field of marine transport, and so too are there scoundrels in the financial sphere, which will never be rid of them. The thing is, not to give them a helping hand. At present, modern capitalism operates in such a way as to offer lifelines to the bad boys of the financial world. They take the form of tax havens, tax fraud and indecipherable capital structures. What we have the task of combating is this indecipherability, which prevents us from arresting those who are guilty. That is why we have to conduct a determined struggle against these tax havens by stepping up the pressure through every means at our disposal, whether it be embargoes or boycotts. If one country is boycotted because it does not respect human rights, why not boycott another for drawing a veil over fraudulent capitalist wheeler-dealing? It seems to me that this is worth thinking about. Moreover, if there is a real desire to achieve transparency, a say must be given to those able to act as a counterbalance. Indeed, you cannot have ambitions to improve the way in which the operation of companies is regulated without granting more say to salaried and other employees. That applies to the debate we have had on Mr Katiforis’ report on rating agencies, and it also applies to the issue of the takeovers on which our Parliament has deliberated, not forgetting the issue of company boards of directors. On the latter point, it seems to me, Commissioner, that the document you have submitted to us, concerned with corporate governance, still falls far short of what we need. In conclusion, I wish to point out that the life of companies is too important a matter to be left to financiers alone.

Political group: PSE