Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am a Member of the group which has joined forces with the two rapporteurs, Mrs Kathalijne Buitenweg and Mr Richard Howitt, with a great deal of conviction in order to enable Parliament to deliver the parliamentary opinion on this Commission proposal this week, and I would like to thank the rapporteurs very explicitly and with all my heart for the extremely constructive spirit in which we have been able to work. The Social Democrats in Parliament have fought doggedly to keep this item on the agenda and I am pleased that we managed to achieve this thanks to a sound proposal for compromise from the Liberals. With all due sympathy and respect for the work which Mr Arie Oostlander and a number of delegates in the Group have put into this in order to win that group over too, I have to say that the continuous attempts at sabotage and procedural games which we have experienced here this week are, as far as I am concerned, proof that a hard core of conservative Members want nothing more than to undermine this report and the directive. I am pleased, however, that we managed to stop them in their tracks. We all know that the Portuguese Presidency is determined to bring this debate in the Council to a successful conclusion. This will not be easy. The majority of MEPs know very well why this directive is important. By implementing the Treaty’s non-discrimination principle swiftly and forcefully, Europe wants to give out an unambiguous message to the citizens in our own countries and those in the candidate countries. This is to prove that Europe is serious about the fight for equal opportunities, irrespective of people’s race or ethnic origin and also because it is a well-known fact that discrimination is still rife in our countries, and that there is still racism and extreme nationalism which, in fact, is more prominent than before because racist political parties are cashing in on the ‘own nation first’ ideas. I know that the debate in the Council is also a difficult one. It is precisely for this reason that it is important that the European Parliament strengthens and supports the Commission's position, because we will soon need a sound and efficient directive which fights any type of discrimination on the basis of racial and ethnic origin. To finish off, I would like to highlight a number of my Group’s priorities in terms of content. Firstly, it is extremely important for the non-discrimination directive to have a wide and efficient scope. This is why we are very much in favour of extending the directive to groups of people who are discriminated against and also to areas such as housing, education, public service operations and attitudes within the police force. We are also pleased with the solution which we finally reached regarding discrimination on the basis of religion which should not be a covert reason for discriminating on the basis of ethnic origin. Secondly, in our opinion, the strength of this directive will stand or fall with its enforceability, the extent to which it monitors discrimination, the efficiency of the measures taken against discrimination and, as such, the importance we attach to the possibility of organising collective actions to tie sanctions in with the directive. With all due respect and sympathy, Mr Oostlander, but since you refer to the cleaning-up operation, I notice that this is precisely one of those cornerstones of our reinforcement plan which is being removed. I do not agree with this. This is taking it much too far. Moreover, my Group also supports the reinforcement of, and support for, the operation of, those independent monitoring bodies. I am convinced that the centre for equal opportunities in my own country will be encouraged in its activities by this directive. I should like to finish off with one last consideration regarding the shared burden of proof because I am really at a loss to understand the resistance on the part of some people. Surely it should be clear to everybody that it is impossible for a migrant who is discriminated against to prove that he is being discriminated against at work or by house owners, unless the defendant too is at least asked to prove that the facts brought by the plaintiff are unfounded. We women are already familiar with this procedure. This is why we have fought for such a long time for a directive which distributes this burden of proof, and all we men and women of the Group of the are asking for is for migrants to be treated in the same way as women. This is why we will also support the Commission’s proposal and will not permit any amendments in this area.

Political group: PSE