The text of my speech:
Your 18,000 "Europe at work" programme has sentiments that have been echoed a thousand times before it was probably build for from a blueprint from the Commission and Berlin
Last week in Strasbourg Commission President Barroso naively said if every small and medium enterprise created one position unemployment would be eliminated in Europe.
Does the presidency understand that over EU regulation is helping to destroy jobs? In the UK the Federation of Small Businesses manifesto plea at the last election was, "no more EU regulation please".
Minister, you said that "jobs are not created by employment and social policies only" but Minister the destruction of jobs and the creation of jobs are destroyed by such policies.
A series of EU-dictated cuts have degraded public services, reduced salaries and wreaked havoc on people's lives.
Whilst I share your opinion about creating training opportunities for our young people - it is all rhetoric isn't it with no solid proposals.
And again I agree with active ageing, how do you square the circle? Where are all these jobs going to come from? Maybe you want to create jobs by creating thousands and training schemes that bleed the taxpayer without providing any real substance.
Finally, I note that you extoll the virtues of the Euro as currency, from a country that like the UK does not have the Euro. Your people twice rejected the Euro, last time in 2000 in a Referendum. Your country, your population does not believe in the Euro - and quite rightly so. We had the scaremongering in the late 90s about the Euro and we were told we would lose jobs and that certain companies would move out. We've stayed outside of the Euro. Those companies such as Nissan did not move out, it is just scaremongering. Jobs are created outside of the Eurozone, not inside the Eurozone.
