Paul Connaughton
Ceist:5 Mr. Connaughton asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will outline his views on the way in which the EC should develop programmes in favour of industrial adjustment under Title XIV of the Treaty of Maastricht.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - EC Industrial Adjustment.
John V. Farrelly
Ceist:16 Mr. Farrelly asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will outline his views on the way in which the EC should develop programmes in favour of industrial adjustment under Title XIV of the Treaty of Maastricht.
Theresa Ahearn
Ceist:28 Mrs. T. Ahearn asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will outline his views on the way in which the EC should develop programmes in favour of industrial adjustment under Title XIV of the Treaty of Maastricht.
Nora Owen
Ceist:39 Mrs. Owen asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will outline his views on the way in which the EC should develop programmes in favour of industrial adjustment under Title XIV of the Treaty of Maastricht.
Michael D'Arcy
Ceist:45 Mr. D'Arcy asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will outline his views on the way in which the EC should develop programmes in favour of industrial adjustment under Title XIV of the Treaty of Maastricht.
Ruairí Quinn
Ceist:48 Mr. Quinn asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce the steps, if any, he has taken or proposes to take to formulate an Irish position on the desirability of a European Community industrial policy which would harmonise and equalise Community and State aids to industry with a view to promoting full employment in Europe generally, and regional cohesions and development in particular, and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Gerry Reynolds
Ceist:67 Mr. G. Reynolds asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will outline his views on the way in which the EC should develop programmes in favour of industrial adjustment under Title XIV of the Treaty of Maastricht.
Frank Crowley
Ceist:75 Mr. Crowley asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will outline his views on the way in which the EC should develop programmes in favour of industrial adjustment under Title XIV of the Treaty of Maastricht.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 5, 16, 28, 39, 45, 48, 67 and 75 together.
Ireland fully supports the concept that Community industrial policy should promote permanent adaptation to industrial change in an open and competitive market; that this policy be implemented through the creation of a favourable environment for firms' initiative, and that industrial problems at a regional or sectoral level should increasingly be resolved by horizontal measures, for example, internal market, standardisation, competition policy.
We believe that the objective of a Community industrial policy should be to create a favourable economic climate for firms through low inflation, low interest rates and measures to promote economic convergence and cohesion. Open competitive markets should be the aim rather than measures to protect or promote specific industrial sectors.
In relation to State aids, as recommended by the Industrial Policy Review Group, Ireland will continue to actively promote the case for more effective EC restrictions on State aids for industry in the more developed regions with a view to promoting regional cohesion.
Ireland supports the Commission view that structural adjustment mainly involves three stages and that the Community's industrial policy must strike a balance between the three.
The first of these stages is the achievement of the necessary prerequisites for structural adjustment. This involves securing a stable economic environment in order, in particular, to strengthen firms' ability to invest; maintaining a competitive environment by keeping a careful watch on large mergers and acquisitions and controlling State aid rigorously; guaranteeing a high level of educational attainment as the basis for generating and assimilating new technologies and organisational methods; promoting economic and social cohesion between Community regions, with emphasis being placed on the role of the Structural Fund for areas with lagging economies; and achieving a high level of environmental protection in order to safeguard human health and the natural environment and create new markets as a source of competition for "clean" growth.
The Commission has defined the second stage as the pursuit of measures for underpinning structural adjustment, including: completion of the internal market, to be achieved in particular by improving European standards and product quality, liberalising public procurement, abolishing national import quotas and establishing a coherent legal framework and trans-European networks; and an open trade policy as a necessary complement to the opening of the internal market, with strict respect for the internationally agreed rules by all world trade partners; this includes refraining from unfair trading practices and the Community being willing to take effective action to defend itself.
The third stage involves means of speeding up structural adjustment such as: development of firms' technological capabilities by providing more favourable conditions for the planning, development, diffusion and use of advanced technologies; a dynamic policy towards small and medium-sized enterprises, designed to limit red-tape, increase co-operation and improve access to Community and world markets; and better use of human resources and easier introduction of new technologies and working methods as a result of worker training and retraining.
This approach at Community level is consistent with the broader way of dealing with industrial development which we ourselves are now implementing in line with the recommendations of the Culliton report.
While the Fine Gael Members are getting their thoughts together on that positive description of Heaven that has been set out by the Minister——
Apple pie and motherhood.
One wonders why we have any employment problems with that kind of a scenario? Does the Minister not think it is manifestly not the case that to rely on competition policy alone and to rely on the creation of low inflation competitively priced labour market that he talks about will make an impact on our unemployment problems; that in the normal course of events power, wealth and jobs will accrete to the centre of the Community, and that there should be some instrument in industrial policy to bring jobs to the people rather than bring people to the jobs?
We seem to be reverting back to the answer to Question No. 2.
Perhaps I should have taken more questions together, Sir, and that would have solved that.
We have already disposed of Question No. 2.
Is the Minister satisfied, having regard to what he has just said, that equal opportunities exist for the people of this country vis-á-vis other EC countries, given the directives and adjustments that my question refers to? For example, does an Irish unemployed person, have a reasonably equal chance of getting a job with a person living in Germany, Holland or France, given the investment policy and proposed policies?
May I reply first to Deputy Rabbitte's supplementary question? He is wrong in judging my fairly lengthy reply as one that concentrated solely on competition policy and allied matters, as that is clearly not the case.
In reply to both Deputy Durkan and Deputy Rabbitte, I would say that neither a citizen living in Ireland nor in some other peripheral State such as Portugal and Greece, in particular, has an equal chance of employment. They do not, and certainly not of the same value or type of employment. The whole point of the Maastricht Treaty with its emphasis on cohesion is that, whereas they did not have it in the past they will increasingly have it in the future. It will not change overnight, because if we were to have something like the European Monetary Union on its own without anything else, all the pressure would be back towards the centre. The Community recognises that very fully and that is why it seeks so hard in Maastricht to develop its regional and cohesion policies. In particular, we will be discussing a different aspect of this, but one which I think is equally relevant, in a later question on State aids because the Community's policies on State aids is of enormous importance in achieving the kind of objectives that Deputy Durkan speaks of. The primary criterion for the Community in respect of State aids policies in the future will be cohesion.
While I agree with what is deemed to be the spirit of Maastricht, there are a couple of disturbing factors that have arisen since then which are relevant to the Minister's answer to my question. First, as regards the reneging by the British Government on the Social Charter and their claim that for domestic reasons this would put them in a much more competitive position than other member states, I have been endeavouring to find out from the Minister or indeed the Minister for Labour for the past few months if they agree with that assessment, and, if so, how the competition policy will work if the British say they will be more competitive than the other member states. Second, the British Foreign Secretary said this week that no moneys have been agreed for Regional Funds and I think he used words like "not one penny extra will be available". If a sum of money was agreed at Maastricht for the laudable intention of making the peripheral States more competitive and that the Regional Fund would be applied to help create jobs in the regions, it is somewhat disturbing to find one of the major countries saying that there is no money as no moneys have been voted for this.
We shall have to proceed by way of supplementary questions.
The Deputy is making the mistake of thinking that because Britain's representatives say something that it is fact. In my view, the British have put themselves at a great disadvantage. It may not be that they will be outside the Social Charter aspects of the Maastricht Treaty for long because the Labour Party in Britain have declared recently that if they win the forthcoming general election they will immediately sign the Social Charter aspects of the Maastricht Union Treaty. I am glad to know that. In the meantime if the British Government were to persist in their view that they did not want to go along with Maastricht in full, I think they are putting themselves particularly vis-á-vis investment from third countries at a major disadvantage because they choose for their own reasons not to be fully in accord with the Community and not to be in the fullest sense a full member of the Community. Whatever short term benefits they believe they will gain from that policy will I believe be short lived and of little use to Britain in the longer term. It is not for me to tell them what their policy should be but it seems to me this is a consequence of their policy if they choose to continue along that line.
Deputy Barry is concerned that the British Foreign Secretary has said that no money has been voted in respect of Regional or Cohesion Funds. We are well aware that it has not been voted and the British do not want to vote for it but the Deputy will be familiar, I am sure, with the general nature of the Delors package Mark II. I have every confidence that the Delors package Mark II will become a Community instrument in the fullness of time.
Would the Minister agree that at the end of the day the success of the various measures outlined depends on the major industrial powers in central Europe playing the game, complying with the new regulations on competition, state aids and so on and that our experience with many of them, particularly the Italians and the French, has not been of as high a standard as one would have liked? Would he agree that great caution will be needed in the future to ensure that they play the game to a greater extent?
If the larger central European powers do not play the game, it is a matter for the Commission and the Court to make them do so. We place our reliance on the Commission and the Court.