Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-24-Speech-2-280"
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"en.20020924.12.2-280"2
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"Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his tremendous work on this report. I would also like to thank the Commissioner for some of the hints she has given us on what she hopes to achieve in the coming year with regard to these guidelines and strategies.
My last point is that we need to continue investing in people, because no matter how many figures and statistics are put before us the bottom line is that we are talking about one single individual person who has lost out on an opportunity within the European Union. If, by our discussions here tonight and our work over the next year each of us could get one single person into a quality job we could achieve a lifetime's work because we have helped our fellow human beings to help themselves and they in turn can be the trainers, educators and ambassadors of the future.
Tomorrow we must give this report a ringing endorsement, but we must also ensure that we do not tie our hands. Future ideas must be flexible and able to adapt to the new society.
No-one has yet mentioned that people create jobs. Any model where a forced system of state employment or superstructure artificially creates employment is doomed to failure. This is because underlying economic development, which ensures that long-lasting, quality jobs can be created, is not there. There is, however, a necessity and an urgency for the state to be involved in the protection of workers and the social protection aspects. However, when the role of the entrepreneur or business in creating jobs is taken away, then the reality of the employment-creation quandary is undermined.
When the overall aspects of the different economies within the European Union and throughout the world are considered, those which have created the best and most numerous jobs are those which focus on five key issues. Firstly, a strong social partnership model whereby all the actors at a national level are involved in determining broad economic policy, as well as social policy. Secondly, where incentives are given to entrepreneurs and to businesses to invest in new jobs, in new infrastructure and in research and development, giving a longer-lasting guarantee to the creation of manufacturing in other service jobs. Thirdly, a very solid and continuously evolving education and training system, because the real tools we should use to adapt our workforce to the present, as well as future, conditions are those of education and knowledge.
We often hear in this House and other establishments about the idea of lifelong learning. What does it really mean? Mr Bouwman mentioned that middle-aged workers had asked him at a fair what he could do about work for them. There is a depth of knowledge within the European Union, amongst people between the ages of 45 and 60, that is going untapped, a resource that is being lost because of ignorance, because of a lack of innovative thinking or simply because of a lack of a properly-structured training programme to allow them to adapt to the new market forces and employment opportunities available.
There is an old saying: give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, you feed him for life. That must be the underlying basis of our strategies with regard to the quality of jobs, work and employment opportunities available – the kinds of skills that we give to people.
The fourth point concerns competitiveness. It may not be a popular thing to say in this House, particularly when we are discussing social affairs, but unless an economy is competitive, it is not going to be able to deal with the fractures of the market in which it is operating. It is not going to attract inward investment from companies and it is not going to be able to prevent the relocations of industries from that economy to other economies where there is more competitiveness or better conditions.
My last point, which is not often mentioned and which is not paid due recognition, is flexibility – the ability to adapt to changing circumstances. Who would have thought five years ago when this strategy was first started that the numbers of people in employment in the European Union in the information technology sector would be as high as they are today? Likewise, who would have thought five years ago when this strategy was first implemented that the number of long-term unemployed would still continue to be the same five years later? If anything, we have failed those people who are the most vulnerable – the long-term unemployed – by what we have put in place over the last five years. We have failed them, failed to give them the proper tools of knowledge and information to be able to cooperate and deal with the new opportunities that are available.
When we look at the overall strategy a number of things jump out – colleagues on the other side of the House may disagree with this interpretation, but this is my opinion. Firstly, we need to narrow down the guidelines. We need to ensure that they provide the ideal focus needed to attack the areas that we recognise as being the most important. Secondly, we need to give a longer timespan for the guidelines to work. Instead of revising them every year, why not make it every three or four years to ensure again that they can be seen to operate within the mechanisms and systems that they are emerging from?
Next, as many speakers have mentioned, there is a need to coordinate the broad economic policies with regard to employment strategy, to ensure that the two match. Some people say that there is a tension between these two ideals. However, in reality, unless they are working in parallel and in coordination with each other, maximum results will not be achieved, i.e. maximum economic growth and development and maximum employment of those ideals."@en1
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