Mr President, as thousands of employees in Europe are faced with a wave of restructurings, redundancies and redundancy programmes, the Menrad report on European works councils, although it will not radically change the situation, will at least provide a new source of support for employees to enable them to cope with extremely difficult situations and to have some bearing on the decisions being taken. At a time when growth is giving us cause for concern, we should give thought to the content of this growth and the necessity to develop it, by encouraging job stability and skills. There is an urgent need for genuine consultation with employees, an urgent need to dispense with the attitude of treating men and women as goods which are no longer useful, because shareholders consider that they are not profitable enough, even in spite of the true economic situation. Mr Menrad’s report is the fruit of considerable labour, and I would also like to acknowledge his efforts. The report is also the result of the willingness of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs to listen to representatives of the employees of large European companies. Using these meetings as a basis, the Menrad report was able to make a reliable assessment of the situation by showing the need for considerable amendments to the content of the directive. I support many of the proposals made in the report. I would like to reiterate some of them which in my view represent major steps forward for employees. For example, the call, set out in the second paragraph, for information and consultation to take place at regular intervals before the decision by the company or group, so as to allow the workers genuinely to influence the management’s decision-making process. Furthermore, in particularly serious cases, this information could even extend to giving the employees’ representatives the possibility of gaining a negotiating period before a decision takes effect, as described in item 14. I shall again quote the second item, which contains a clause that the decisions of the management will only be regarded as legitimate if an orderly information and consultation process as defined in the Directive has taken place beforehand, or item 13, which proposes the introduction of sanctions for non-compliance. Lastly, there is also the call for companies to repay funds and financial aid provided if they do not observe the law in this area, and to exclude them from public procurement. These proposals are a step in the right direction, but I believe that to ensure action for employment is effective and to improve economic performance in Europe, we could have gone further with regard to the right of employees to participate in the future of companies. This is the goal of the amendment that my group tabled, which calls for the possibility of employees’ representatives to have the right to a suspensive veto. This would involve giving a guarantee to employees’ representatives that their alternative proposals would at least be examined and taken into account. Many decisions which have spelled disaster for companies and for employment could have been avoided if employees had been able to influence these decisions. This right, which is an expression of social justice and democracy within a company, also guarantees efficiency for the economy and society. Once again, the Menrad report represents a considerable step forward and this is why it has the support of my group.

Political group: GUE-NGL