Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-01-Speech-3-131"
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"en.20000301.8.3-131"2
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"Mr President, first of all, I would like to congratulate my colleague Giorgos Katiforis on the report he presented to us. Not the report he presented to us here today, but the one he presented to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, because politically speaking, these are two completely different reports. In very general terms, we could call the first report a left-wing one, as it addresses social issues as well as economic ones. The report we have before us now and which Mr Katiforis is reluctant to defend – and I think that he is right in this – is a hybrid report, from which the main conclusions have been removed, and is based on social concerns.
What did Mr Katiforis actually propose and what has been taken out of the report? He proposed an ambitious report, based on an optimistic Europe, which sought to establish quantified targets for the results it was seeking to achieve. And Europe has indeed achieved progress by means of quantified targets. Why, for example, was the proposal to increase Europe’s active population to 75% of the total population removed, when we currently have levels of around 60%? An active population of 60% is very low compared with that of Japan or the United States and we cannot match those countries’ levels of production with such a low rate of employment.
We therefore need to augment our rate of employment with jobs that are competitive. As has been advocated for the Lisbon Summit, we must prepare our workforce for the new technologies by giving them scientific training. We also need investment to grow at a faster rate.
We are all familiar with the idea advocated by Mr von Wogau, according to which what we need is a flexible workforce. I would like to counter this with the example of Portugal, where employment laws are not flexible, and where unemployment stands at less than 5% – and has been steadily decreasing over the last few years – because investment is increasing, with Community support of course, at a rate considerably higher than the Community average. What we want, therefore, is for Europe to enjoy economic growth, but also be prepared to address social issues."@en1
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