Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is a clear need for action on the issue of undeclared work in all the Member States, for there have not so far been many successes in combating it. All the more reason, then, for me to welcome the Commission’s communication on undeclared work because it gets the discussion going at European level. In this way, I now come to a core demand of this really excellent report by Mrs Glase. We must unreservedly include the fight against undeclared work in European employment strategy. With problems of this complexity, we need to exchange views, learn from each other and, in accordance with the tried and tested motto for our employment strategy, always seek best practice. We must take a close look at the issue of undeclared work in order to be able to combat its various causes efficiently. I would warn against over-simplification, three forms of which I would also at this point immediately oppose on behalf of the Group of the . The first point concerns the repeatedly made assertion according to which undeclared work is in the first place traceable to unduly high taxes and social security contributions. I would say to my fellow MEPs in the conservative camp that things are really not that simple. Let us take Austria and Italy, for example. In Austria, taxes are significantly higher than in Italy. In spite of that, there is very much more undeclared work in Italy. High taxes and social charges are therefore only one reason among many. Or look at Scandinavia. There, taxes and social charges are somewhat higher still. On the other hand, the amount of undeclared work is comparatively small. This no doubt also means that the quantity of undeclared work also has something to do with social acceptability, that is to say with a society’s social coherence. Undeclared work must no longer remain a mere peccadillo. Secondly, I should like to reject the argument that making the labour market more flexible would reduce the amount of undeclared work. This would-be panacea does not in fact work. The Thatcher era in Britain taught us that. The amount of undeclared work rose then, despite the fact that the labour market was made more flexible and social charges were reduced. Making the labour market more flexible is something which no doubt only works if correspondingly high social standards can be maintained. Thirdly, undeclared work is not primarily the result of illegal immigration from third countries. On the contrary, the majority of those who engage in undeclared work are our own citizens. As Mrs Glase’s report shows, we need a sensible policy mix at national and European levels. As a part of this, public authorities throughout the EU must also be jointly liable for ensuring that no contracts at all are awarded to companies whose quotations can quite clearly be traced back to the existence of undeclared work. In the same way, companies need to be jointly and severally liable towards their sub-contractors. However, we also want a right of class action which could help the trade unions, in particular, to take proceedings against those suspected of not declaring their employees or only partially declaring them.

Political group: PSE