Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-16-Speech-4-026"
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"en.20000316.2.4-026"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner Liikanen, ladies and gentlemen, before starting on my speech on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I want to express our very sincere and warm thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Read. We have been working against the clock and we have been dealing with an excellent and supportive fellow Member, who has been very open to accepting all the points our committee wanted to raise in this important debate. Many thanks for your report and your skill, Mrs Read.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has welcomed the Commission’s very important initiative
Europe, for the Special European Council to be held in Lisbon on 23 and 24 March, with support and optimism.
We naturally applaud the Commission’s aim of making the information society benefit all sectors and all regions but now, with the Commissioner here, we also have the opportunity to consider the citizens’ viewpoint and remind the Commission and the public that rhetoric in announcing objectives and expressing desires is not enough. We want these words transformed as firmly as possible into specific objectives and precise financial commitments, because that is the only way to get a real strategy covering every aspect of the information society. And the strategy will only be of use to the weakest groups and individuals, and those who are most at risk of exclusion from the new society, if there are concrete commitments.
No doubt the Commission has the noblest intentions, but, looked at from the viewpoint of the workers and the least advantaged people, it still has not answered the questions this Parliament has raised in many documents, for example, the report on the Green Paper entitled “Living and Working in the Information Society: People First”. We still do not have much idea of who is going to finance the massive programme to teach basic digital literacy which Europe needs to close the gap with the United States.
We do not have much idea of how the responsibilities can be divided between governments and Commission, or what role trade unions and civil society can play. So we want supplementary analyses taken into account, we want firmer commitments, we want a specific point about strengthening employment and social cohesion in the information society – because there is nothing about that in the Commission’s communication – and we want a strategy with guidelines, recommendations and indicators.
We want adults mentioned, not just young people, we want disadvantaged groups mentioned and we want you to remember equality of opportunity too. The new society must not exacerbate inequality between men and women.
Commissioner, there are great opportunities here, but they must reach all the people. And we want the European social model to be defended.
So we are asking for a step forward, with more specific commitments and far more adequate political and financial efforts."@en1
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