Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-15-Speech-3-039"
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"en.20060315.3.3-039"2
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"Mr President, Mr Barroso, Mr Winkler, the Commission generally has the knack of finding evocative patronymics for its programmes: Erasmus, Socrates and so on. Well, it could have called its Lisbon Strategy ‘Janus’ after the famous Roman deity, traditionally represented as having two faces: one looking to the future and the other to the past, exactly like the Lisbon agenda.
One of these faces of the Lisbon Strategy for the ten-year period 2000–2010 is pleasing and calls to mind the conclusions of the 2005 spring European Council with their talk of the need for, and I quote, ‘investing in human capital [which is] Europe’s most important asset’. It heralds more jobs – even full employment – as well as better quality jobs. It emphasises the importance of research, education and innovation, as well as of having a solid industrial fabric throughout the territory of the EU. It even puts forward the objective, and I quote, of ‘halting the loss of biological diversity between now and 2010’.
That particular face of the European Janus looks towards the future. It seems to herald such an era of social, economic and ecological progress that, at first sight, it is difficult to understand why the Commission considers, and I quote, that ‘[a] lot remains to be done to convince people that reforms will contribute to greater, shared prosperity and to involve them in the process’.
Why, for heaven’s sake? It is because there is the other face of the Lisbon Strategy, this one directed towards the EU leaders’ unrelenting liberal obsessions. I would refer to the latest Commission communication with its references to, for example, the need to make Europe more attractive to business, to reforming pensions, the health sector and the labour market and to stabilising the budget, raising the retirement age, increasing productivity at work, ensuring genuine competition in the services sector and promoting increased competition in the electricity and gas markets.
The Commission even expects the unions to play a role in the proliferation of this liberal strategy and expects Parliament also to convey its virtues.
We are seeing German civil servants joining forces to protest against longer working hours and lower salaries and Italian employees demanding a thorough review of law 30 and the way in which it blithely generates job insecurity. We are seeing young French people rebelling against plans for two-year contracts of employment enabling bosses to dismiss them at will, female salaried staff in Britain challenging plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 65 years and employees in the new Member States of Central Europe opposed to their countries being considered part of a low cost zone and demanding their rights to social progress. Faced with these people and, indeed, all those opposed to the strategy of squeezing public and social expenditure that is being conducted under the aegis of the Stability Pact, do not, I beseech you, rely on us to explain to them that they are mistaken because, contrary to appearances, the Lisbon Strategy has their well-being at heart.
The truth of the matter is that the two aspects of the Lisbon Strategy are incompatible. The second needs to be thwarted so that the first might thrive. That is the choice facing us."@en1
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