Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-14-Speech-2-351"
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"en.20060314.28.2-351"2
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".
Mr President, at midday today, President Horst Köhler stated that many people fail to understand present-day Europe. If somebody sees the enormous amounts of energy that Europe has been investing in the reformulation of its migration policy, I am convinced that they would find the problem of child poverty in Europe incomprehensible.
While we talk about the lack of highly trained migrants, we register unavoidable and huge losses as a result of child poverty, losses that future generations will rightly call us to account for.
Therefore, it is not a mere coincidence that the report on social protection and social inclusion tabled before you focuses mainly on child poverty, because while 15% of European citizens are at risk of poverty, this figure is 19% in the case of children, and based on 2004 data, in 12 of the 25 member states the risk of child poverty is at least 25% higher than in the adult population. I would like to emphasise that this is not an emotional or perhaps a legal issue, because the International Convention on the Rights of the Child contains binding clauses in this respect.
Europe is also faced with the problem that in the following decades, as a result of the population growth crisis and the aging of society, it will need fifty million new migrants in order to maintain current employment levels. Child poverty, the exclusion that accompanies it and the high rate of early school-leaving cast a doubt on the possibility of developing a knowledge-based society without leaving social strata further and further behind.
The Commission is right to treat the issue of child poverty with priority, but on the other hand we find that we do not have accurate data, that there are no comparable data concerning child poverty. It is obvious that this situation must be rectified urgently.
In my report I would have liked to emphasise that social inclusion represents added value to the Lisbon process. European social policy requires a new solidarity between generations, because the damage caused to the human resources of the future by child poverty and the related undereducation should not be underestimated.
I could obviously mention many other problems presented in the report, but as time is short I shall only mention one more, namely the displacement of older work force from the labour market. Although there is an anti-discrimination directive in place in this area, discrimination still exists, but it is more difficult to track. I am convinced that the Commission chose the right direction when it set clear and traceable objectives for the modernisation of social protection. And last, but not least, I would like to thank the Secretariat of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for their excellent cooperation, and to express my thanks for the amendment proposal of my colleagues. And not least, I would also like to thank them for being here and participating in the debate."@en1
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