Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-13-Speech-1-028"
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"en.20000313.2.1-028"2
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"Mr Prime Minister, we would like to believe, along with you and the Portuguese Presidency, that Europe should be built as a civilisation whose economic and social prosperity is founded on the cultivation of knowledge, cultural diversity and cohesion, and which plays an active role in promoting a world order that is more balanced, more peaceful, and less fragmented.
We can but share the concern of the Council and the Commission to see the European Union, after the single market and after the euro, finally equipping itself with a political project that is accessible to all its citizens, but the new governance of which you are – in my opinion unfairly – priding yourselves lacks the democratic and participatory ambition to which nascent European civil society aspires.
We would also like to believe, along with yourselves, that there is generally a clear awareness that the scale of the changes that must be envisaged in terms of the qualifications needed to address the new technological challenges facing companies itself brings with it the inherent risk of creating new mechanisms for social exclusion, to cite you once more.
We would like to believe this, but we cannot. Why? Because we know that the new economy will, of course, foster the emergence of new jobs for creative staff, for IT staff. We can see the feverish way in which the potential for investors has snowballed and the phenomenon of ‘start-ups’ has developed, but we are also aware of the staff turnover that typifies call centres due to the dreadful working conditions that reign in these new temples of Taylorism, which employ hundreds of thousands of people. We know that over half the jobs currently being created in the European Union are precarious, temporary or perforce part-time, and as a result provide the employee with neither the conditions for self-reliance nor, very often, an income that offers them a decent standard of living.
We know that new technologies do not, in themselves, generate greater democracy, but simply greater collective and personal autonomy for those citizens who are better integrated into mainstream society. We know that the privatisation of public services poses a threat to social, regional and local cohesion, and we also know that the Commission is proposing to accelerate this process. We know that UNICE has, on behalf of the employers, publicly shown its colours in the preparatory documents for the European business summit to be held in Brussels in June: the public authorities are requested to remove all social, regulatory and fiscal barriers to the development of business and to invest massively in shoring up demand. Lastly, we know that anyone who claims to meet the needs of the citizens must first ensure their total involvement in public policy decisions. We know all of this.
But we have read and heard nothing as regards the incorporation of the recommendation of the high-level group of experts, whose opinion it is that the unqualified economic success of the information society depends on this society being fuelled by the real needs of its citizens, rather than by the demands of market forces in the hi-tech sector. We have heard nothing about support being provided to all practical trials involving the public-minded use of new information technologies by the general public, nor about the role of associations for learning and information being promoted for all sectors of society. We have heard nothing about the possibility of public funds being freed up to promote innovation in the field of products and services liable to improve the quality of life for all. We have heard nothing about the universal telecommunications service being redefined in order to make it possible for everyone to access the Internet under the best possible technical conditions and at affordable rates.
In short, we have heard nothing to suggest that the citizen will be anything more than a customer. We have heard nothing to suggest that, over and above the positive and clearly-stated objective of eradicating child poverty, personal autonomy would be enhanced, in each Member State, by the setting of decent minimum wages, which are an integral part of a genuine strategy to end social exclusion.
We have heard nothing to suggest that the objective of full employment would cover support for local and regional initiatives, the underground sector of the mutually-supportive economy, the practical and coordinated reduction of working times, or that this objective would tally with strict requirements as regards the quality and durability of these jobs.
We have heard nothing to suggest that opting for sustainable development would be a guiding factor in long-awaited growth.
We can find nothing in the document from the Portuguese Presidency, nor in the Commission’s strategic guidelines for 2000, that reveals the slightest trace of a legislative programme in the field of social policy, be this to bolster the rights of employees threatened with redundancy or to prevent social dumping."@en1
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