Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-05-15-Speech-4-024"
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"en.20030515.1.4-024"2
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"Madam President, Mr García Margallo has drafted his report in the tradition of the Lisbon approach. It is a balanced report which, more so than the guidelines themselves, is seeking to strike a balance between financial-economic and social and employment-directed policy. Like others, I think it is unfortunate that we were unable to discuss Mr Schmid's report on the employment guidelines today, for it is precisely this integrated approach that is of great importance.
Something which I would particularly like to address is the report's plea to set up a structural reforms action plan. Like others, including the Commissioner, I am critical about setting up yet another plan. I do think that the underlying analysis is right, namely that so little comes of the recommendations from previous global guidelines and of the Lisbon agenda because the Member States do not actually implement those recommendations and because the Commission does not have any actual power of enforcement in these matters. I share this view. Very often, many fine words are spoken and nothing is done about them. Furthermore, the same government leaders who agree on this are, in Brussels, often those who are reluctant to actually implement the attendant legislation.
What I would welcome is for the plan for a task force, which was set up during the previous European Summit and which mainly aims to implement policy, to be coupled to this idea of structural reforms. I think that this idea fits in very well with what must be done by this task force under the leadership of Wim Kok, namely to draw the attention of the Member States to the need for implementing the strategy. In my view, the economic rigidities which Mr Margallo mentioned are precisely those things that fall within this scope of financial-economic and social and employment policy.
I should like to mention a few points. Flexible employment patterns with certainties for workers; increase in labour productivity with a better quality of work; less rigid working and opening times, but also workers’ having more say about their hours; intensification of the knowledge potential, but lifelong learning for all, and all age categories; greater labour mobility, but with continuity of accrued rights; and the list goes on. In all those structural reforms, it is important to strike this balance and to create a basis for improvements rather than to call for protest.
I think that the urgency is clear, that the direction is also clear if viewed in this context and that it is essential that those paper recommendations should be translated into real policy. Moreover, I hope that this task force can play an important part in this."@en1
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