and competitiveness and, on the other hand, the social dimension and the environment. I subscribe to what Mr Rasmussen said but should like to add that, if we do not embrace the conclusions of the Gothenburg European Council, which commit the entire EU and are genuinely at the heart of a European strategy for qualitative growth, and if, furthermore, India and China were to go down the lines you proposed, the earth’s ecosystem would, in this century, be in a disastrous state.
I would ask you when, in January, you present us with your proposals, to return to the main conclusions of the Gothenburg European Council regarding a qualitative growth policy that favours employment and the environment.
Meijer (GUE/NGL ).
    Mr President, even though Social Democrats predominated in the previous Commission, they supported the neo-liberal policy that came out of Lisbon 2000. The new Commission is dominated by Christian Democrats and Liberals, who quite openly proclaim their intention of implementing the right-wing political programme contained in the draft Constitution.
Quite apart from the change in the Commission’s political complexion, it is apparent that some of the candidates have a history of giving priority to their private business activities over and above any kind of public interest. Mrs Kroes, if she gets the competition portfolio, will have to monitor whether others are doing what she herself has done for decades, namely giving preferential treatment to one business rather than another, concluding secret deals and enabling a clique of friends to profit from them. When asked in her hearing about the award of subsidies to criminal friends, she gave the same explanation that the Dutch parliament had unanimously rejected back in 1997. Moreover, she has now for the first time admitted that, ten years ago, she sent a secret letter with the aim of enabling an associated business to get a share in a transaction conducted by the Dutch export consortium she chaired. The Dutch Government claims that only President B