Mr President, with this document, the Commission has tried to show courtesy towards us. In a short space of time, the Commission and Commissioner Bolkestein have presented us with this communication on a strategy for the European internal market. Now, as Mrs Wallis has highlighted, the problem is that we are acting at breakneck speed, perhaps because we have little time and we have to move quickly. Clearly, the Commission has had little time to draw up this document, and we have had even less time. Tomorrow we are going to vote on a motion for a resolution. I believe that the Group will vote in favour of it, but it has introduced a series of amendments which, as you might expect, reflect thinking. And here I would like to point out to Mr Lehne that, without doubt, he has not read the Commission’s strategy if he thinks that social considerations were out of it, because the strategic objective number 1 which the Commission has set is to improve the quality of life of our citizens. And within this strategic objective, we should achieve, amongst the operational objectives, the promotion of employment and ensure the coordination of social protection and the broad protection of our citizens’ rights. Therefore, the amendments aim to fill this particular gap. And among the amendments, there is one, which Mrs Wallis highlighted, which points out the special position of the outermost regions, which are totally separated from Community territory, a long way from it and which therefore, in the application of Community law, in accordance with the new article 299.2 of the Treaty, cannot be subject to the same regulations which are in force in the internal market in continental Europe. I totally agree with Mr MacCormick’s observations on the situation of artists, which would have to extend to the whole field of intellectual creation, which suffers from a deficit within the European Community, especially in the field of external competition, and I also agree with his observation concerning the need to guarantee the free movement and free practice of the intellectual profession within the European Community. And I would also like to point out that Mrs Peijs is very right to say that one of the difficulties which we have today in the Community field is that Community law is interpreted and applied in a different way in each of the fifteen Member States. The problem is that the Community has to legislate because, if it does not legislate, the States will legislate for it. At the moment, we have a broad set of Community regulations, fifteen sets of national regulations and in many cases, for example in the federal, or almost federal, States, many more. If the Community does not regulate, if the Community does not provide a legal framework, this will continue along the worst lines possible. I hope, therefore, that after this first Commission communication, the Commission will present Parliament with a strategic programme, with the necessary legislative package, with more time for the Commission and more time for Parliament, but I also hope that, during this legislature, the internal market will become a reality and that, in becoming a reality, it will do so to the benefit of the citizens and the workers and that it will allow for the continued consolidation of this European social model, which I would say at the moment is the envy of those countries which do not belong to the European Union.

Political group: PSE