Doing more with less money. This is what the European Council
believes with the adoption of the conclusions of the MFF, the European Union's
Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020. For the first time in history, the EU
budget has been reduced. As a first reaction, the leaders of the biggest
political groups in the European Parliament underlined in a joint statement that
they cannot accept the deal reached by the European Council. MEPs debated the
EU's long-term budget with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and
Commission President José Manuel Barroso here in the European
Parliament. Watch this Event of the week ...The 'Event of the Week' is a weekly programme highlighting a key
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Access Investments-Building Awareness - European Union-ROMANIA
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Doing more with less money. This is what the European Council
believes with the adoption of the conclusions of the MFF, the European Union's
Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020. For the first time in history, the EU
budget has been reduced. As a first reaction, the leaders of the biggest
political groups in the European Parliament underlined in a joint statement that
they cannot accept the deal reached by the European Council. MEPs debated the
EU's long-term budget with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and
Commission President José Manuel Barroso here in the European
Parliament. Watch this Event of the week ...The 'Event of the Week' is a weekly programme highlighting a key
event in the European Parliament. This video will soon be available
in German, French, Spanish and Italian on our
website. ...For free broadcast-standard video, please visit http://epp.synapticdigital.com/ . If
you are a first-time user, please take a moment to register. In case you have
any questions, please email journalisthelp@thenewsmarket.com.
Please note that all our videos can be found on our YouTube Channel and Facebook page. For any comments and reactions please contact us at epp-tv@europarl.europa.eu or the
Producer :ioannis.zografos@europarl.europa.eu
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Maurice Taylor, chief executive of Titan, berated the French work ethic in response to a request for the US company to consider investing in a loss-making Goodyear plant in Amiens, northern France, in an attack which has infuriated unions.
"I have visited that factory a couple of times. The French workforce gets paid high wages but only works three hours," Mr Taylor wrote in a letter to Arnaud Montebourg, French Industrial Renewal Minister, dated February 8 and obtained by French business daily Les Echos.
"They get one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three and work for three. I told this to the French union workers to their faces. They told me that's the French way!"
Goodyear said last month it planned on closing the plant, which employs 1,173 workers, following five years of failed talks with unions.
Mr Taylor said Titan had a long history of buying and turning around troubled factories but in this instance was not in any way interested.
Sir, your letter states that you want Titan to start a discussion. How stupid do you think we are? Titan is the one with the money and the talent to produce tyres. What does the crazy union have? It has the French government," Mr Taylor wrote.
The Titan boss, who made an unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination in the 1996 presidential election, said France's industrial base was under threat from low productivity and cheap imports, including tyres from China that he said were made in subsidised factories.
"Titan is going to buy a Chinese tyre company or an Indian one, pay less than one euro per hour wage and ship all the tyres France needs. You can keep the so-called workers. Titan has no interest in the Amiens North factory," he wrote.
Mr Taylor's incendiary comments have drawn fury from French unions. Mickael Wamen, a representative for the major CGT union at the Goodyear factory, said they showed the Titan boss "belongs more in an insane asylum than at the head of a multinational corporation", and threatened to file legal action in the US against Goodyear and Titan over the closure of the plant.
However, the insults have received some assent in the Gallic nation.
Bernard Accoyer, an opposition politician, said that while Mr Taylor's assessment amounted to a "mocking caricature", it was "not completely unfounded", adding that the country's "serious competitiveness problem" was linked with the "extremist hardliner" views of some unions.
France's Socialist government, led by President Francois Hollande, is struggling to boost the productivity of its industries in the face of increasing global competition. French firms have announced thousands of job cuts in recent months as the economy stagnates.
The country's labour minister Michel Sapin stoked panic last month after describing France as "totally bankrupt" while being interviewed on radio, a gaffe hastily dismissed as "inappropriate" by finance minister Pierre Moscovici, who said: “France is a really solvent country. France is a really credible country, France is a country that is starting to recover.”
Mr Montebourg told reporters he would reply to Mr Taylor in writing, but declined to comment verbally.
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