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Ahmadiyya Muslim Association Peace Symposium
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Financial instability and the impact on the real economy - September 5th 2007
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| SPEECHES IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT |
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Thursday, 30 November 2006 : Time to move up a gear Creating a Europe of entrepreneurship and growth
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Madam President, just for a moment I should like to test our wonderful interpreters. ‘European Union entrepreneurship’ is an oxymoron, is it not? The whole raison d’être – if I may lapse into the vernacular of this place – is to stifle small business. Rule upon rule, regulation upon regulation are generally made by people with no commercial experience at all. I went through the list of over 700 MEPs just yesterday, and I could not find more than about 5 people who had bona fide business experience.
The Commissioners go on the Microsoft yacht for their holidays, the British Prime Minister has close relations with Lord Browne of BP, and so on and so forth, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with business.
Business in Western Europe is millions upon millions of small businessmen and women living a life of quiet desperation, trying to put their livelihoods together. Small businesses account for over 52% of the UK’s GDP.
You tell us in this place what age we may recruit at; you tell us what colour they may be; you tell us how much leave they must have; you tell us how much their pensions will be. It goes on and on. If we really wanted to get this place sorted out and we really wanted entrepreneurship, I would suggest that we only have Commissioners and MEPs who have actually done an honest day’s work in their lives. There are none!
(Applause from the public gallery) |
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