Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Mantovani for the work he has done on this report. I say that, even though there are features of the report in its final form with which my group disagrees. I should like to thank the Commission for the survey it has given us of future care for the elderly, for I do believe that the Commission communication is genuinely constructive. It indicates a number of overriding goals in terms of access, quality and financial sustainability. It also points out that, even though we know that there will be many more elderly people in the future, it is quite uncertain what that will actually mean in the form of future financial burdens. Over and above this, it points out that, in many areas, the EU has opportunities to make joint contributions under the current rules. That is true in relation to public health policy, on the basis of Article 152 of the Treaty, to economic policy and to the development of the internal market. We therefore have a host of opportunities for cooperating under the existing rules. My group must therefore also reject Parliament’s present proposal, as put forward in the report, that we should introduce outright open coordination when it comes to health policy and policy in relation to the elderly. We have tabled a number of amendments, and if, as I really believe will be the case, it is not possible for these to be supported by Parliament, we shall find it difficult to support the report as a whole. The open coordination method has, of course, become very popular in recent years and is used in a great many areas of economic policy, such as pensions, social exclusion within education and the convergence criteria in employment policy. It is a good form of cooperation in which a number of common objectives are set that can be achieved in different ways. I am a great believer in using open coordination because it is a way of achieving common objectives without needing to legislate in a lot of new areas, but I think it important that open coordination be binding. In some areas, open coordination is directly authorised by the treaties. That applies in the case of economic policy and employment policy. In other areas, there is a less obvious basis in the treaties, or else there is really no basis. It might be said that the Member States have every possible freedom to decide to coordinate their efforts and develop good practice. That is something we have done within the framework of the OSCD for many years, but the difference between OSCD reports and the open coordination we undertake within the framework of the EU is – and, in my view, should be – that open coordination is more binding and that the countries in actual fact undertake to pursue the common objectives. In addition, the parties concerned are very actively involved. I think it would be wrong of us to allow the use of open coordination to escalate to the point of its being used in every possible area. It is of course a basic principle of EU cooperation that we accept diversity and difference. It is an advantage that we have many different models so that we can learn from each other. We must not sneak harmonisation in through the back door in areas where national competence should clearly apply. That is not something for which we would be thanked. In the health sphere, there are many areas in which cooperation and common rules are important and necessary, and there are therefore clear rules about this in the Treaty. Cooperation will develop via the internal market, as a result of that internal market and through other cooperation, such as cooperation on research. As for a common EU policy on residential homes, however, my response is no thank you.

Political group: ELDR