Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-10-Speech-2-499"
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"en.20090310.36.2-499"2
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"Madam President, children and politics – rarely are the interests of the citizens and of the politicians so far apart. For citizens throughout Europe, the subject of children is right at the top of their priorities. For politicians, children’s issues are also-ran issues, as we can see again here, too.
I do not know of a single country with a dedicated ministry for children, nor is there a dedicated representative for the interests of our youngest citizens in the Commission. In Parliament, the subject of children is spread across all the committees. That is why I would like to give special mention to the Commission today, as it is dealing here with childcare facilities and the Barcelona objective. Thank you ever so much.
In the parliamentary working group on Quality of childhood, we observed that our children live in a very complicated world. The future for those who are children right here, right now – today – is completely uncertain. A child of today can climb right to the top of the social ladder or fall right down to the bottom. Such children can remain in their own cultural circle or they can search out another one. They can follow a similar life path to their parents or do the exact opposite. They can marry someone from the opposite sex or someone of their own sex. More than 50 years ago, when we launched the project of uniting Europe, all that was completely different.
The diversity that characterises us as Europeans has become a decisive factor in the lives of children. The concept of diversity must, therefore, find its way into what teachers and others engaged in educating our children teach. Far too little attention is paid to this at present. Europe’s childcare facilities and schools are, after all, cracking under the strain of the challenge of integration. We need to press the reset button when it comes to matters of integration and start again from scratch.
Let us approach this subject completely free of prejudice again, according to the slogan ‘stop it through diversity’. In addition, I would ask all the MEPs after me not only to come out and advocate gender mainstreaming, but to fight for child mainstreaming, too – especially in this time of global financial crisis – because, otherwise, we will saddle our children with immeasurable debts."@en1
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