Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-23-Speech-1-082"
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".
Mr President, I should like to extend my special thanks both to the rapporteur, Mrs Van Lancker, and the French Presidency for the excellent cooperation which we have enjoyed to date. I shall try very briefly to pinpoint a few political aspects of the four areas touched on in greater or lesser detail by all the speakers, i.e. the new political approach in the social agenda, secondly the content, thirdly the means and fourthly the procedures.
As far as the political approach is concerned, we need, I think, to highlight two new elements. The first is that, since Lisbon, the new approach to social policy is to deal with it not as a product or by-product of economic policy, but as a policy in its own right which needs to be exercised in tandem with economic policy and the employment strategy. In other words, this is the only way for us to deal with Europe’s objectives of competitiveness, given our constant concern for enterprises and the economy, and social cohesion, given our constant concern for our citizens and their welfare. The second element in the new approach is quality. Quality as a new political concept to deal with working conditions, employment relations and the services of the social state. These two political approaches underpin the entire content.
What are the basic strands which make up the content? There are three. A set of projects and proposals on employment. I think that what we are endeavouring to achieve through the employment strategy, by strengthening and enriching it as we progress – because the entire social agenda is a process of dynamic change – is to support competitiveness and entrepreneurship in the European Union and flexibility on the job market, alongside security, mobility and new working models, and to support and analyse new social partnership models and the impact of competitiveness and major restructuring on employment and the social state.
The second strand to the social agenda is a set of projects on social policy. Here I would like to refer to the proposal for combating poverty and exclusion, the new work which we have started on pensions and social protection, policies for people with special needs and, more importantly, I would like to pinpoint a particular political aspect, i.e. the need for a new approach to social policy. We must not simply calculate the cost of social policy, which is often seen from several political angles as an obstacle to economic development; we must calculate the cost of not implementing social policy. I think that this analysis will give us new, interesting results and approaches.
The third strand in the content is enlargement. To be brief, social policy, the new social standards and harmonisation of the social legislation of candidate countries with the Member States are one of the most important features of the enlargement procedure and we must not lose sight of that.
This brings me to the third area which has engaged our attention today and throughout our cooperation: the means. I think that the discussion on deregulation and legislation, i.e. do we or do we not need legislation, is old hat. Clearly we have a fairly complete legislative system in Europe, but changes on the job market, changes in the economy, changes in the environment due to globalisation and the information society are throwing up new requirements. When we need to deal with these new requirements with legislation, we shall not, of course, have any hesitation in doing so. If we can deal with them in other ways and with other methods, we shall do so.
The proposal for a scoreboard, for a specific method for monitoring the social agenda, is a huge challenge. The problem is that, because of the legal basis which it has in the Treaty, the social agenda does not constitute a set of laws, a set of directives with specific steps for the Member States. It is still hard for us to define European objectives which are equally valid for all the Member States because the situation on the ground varies. We therefore believe that, in the first instance, common European indicators, a project which is now nearing completion, and national objectives, i.e. the need for each country to have its own scoreboard and carry out monitoring, are a step along the road to providing us with specific results.
Finally, as far as procedures are concerned, I really must congratulate Parliament on its initiative in starting a dialogue with the civil society and the important contribution which this dialogue made to the agenda, as well as highlight the discussions which took place with Parliament, with the Member States and with the social partners at European and national level; this is how we were able to combine national idiosyncrasies and ensure, above all, that the Agenda is not merely ambitious but flexible and efficient. And one last comment: the question of sexual equality runs right through the social agenda as regards both the political approach and the content and means."@en1
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