Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-05-05-Speech-2-243"
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the sharp rise in unemployment is the most serious consequence of the world economic crisis. It affects both families and individuals, who are plunged into real difficulties. It affects society, depriving it of vitality, and it affects the economy, which loses skills and experience that will take years to rebuild.
I believe that every crisis also offers an opportunity to be seized, an opportunity to renew our European model of a social market economy, and an ecological economy also; it offers an opportunity to show Europe’s strong desire to contribute to the well-being of its citizens.
Secondly, Europe really can change things and make a contribution. Of course, while the majority of power is held at a national level, Europe can do a lot, and let us be absolutely sincere on this. We can design the tools at our disposal for maximum efficiency. The European Social Fund can help a considerable number of people; it enables nine million Europeans to access training every year.
We can also act as a reception centre for ideas, as a laboratory. The national governments, local authorities, social partners, and all the stakeholders in Europe, are all trying to find solutions to the consequences of unemployment. They need ideas and projects. The European Union is the ideal setting to gather ideas, to pick out those that will work best, and especially to help in their implementation.
We have worked on this process with the Czech Presidency, the upcoming Swedish and Spanish Presidencies, and the social partners.
Mr President, as you know, the summit has been prepared with an intensive consultation process, built around three preparatory workshops. The input of this Parliament into that process has been most valuable. I would particularly like to pay tribute to the personal commitment of the members of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, and in particular Mr Andersson as chair.
The workshops organised in Madrid, Stockholm and Prague have proved an excellent focus for the phase of gathering ideas about what works best. I welcome the active involvement of the social partners, as well as the input received from other stakeholders. The European Economic and Social Committee has played an active role in gathering ideas from its national counterparts, which will enrich the debate – in fact, I will be meeting the Economic and Social Committee in Prague.
I would like to point to four key issues that have emerged from these events.
First, the top priority must be to keep people in jobs, to do everything possible to prevent a new hike in unemployment. Those who lose their jobs must be helped to find another one. This help must be offered immediately: it is no good waiting until people have been unemployed for several months, by which time their skills have decayed and their confidence is at rock bottom. Long-term unemployment is a tragedy for those hit, and brings real damage to our social stability and long-term competitiveness.
Second, the crisis hits the most vulnerable people the hardest – people like the low-skilled, new entrants or disabled people, who find it difficult to find jobs at the best of times. Now is the time for active inclusion, to step up efforts to give particular support to these groups – a very clear echo of the Lambert report on the agenda today.
Third, we must also work to boost opportunities for young people. I know that this is a particular concern of this Parliament. We must act to tackle the risk that many young people will finish their education and slide straight into unemployment. Young people need our active support to find apprenticeships or further training so that they can find and keep jobs in the future.
It is here that the human and social cost of the crisis hits hardest. Unemployment is a local, national, but also European phenomenon. Within the European market, where more and more citizens are exercising their right to freedom of movement, employment has been a long-standing concern in both national and European politics. That is why it is absolutely necessary to find answers from a European point of view.
Finally, upgrading skills and matching labour market needs. In an economic downturn, it is all the more important for people to acquire those skills that will improve their employability during but also after the crisis. We need to prepare people for the jobs of the future: green-collar jobs and jobs in other growth sectors, such as health and the social-care sector.
This debate also provides the moment to draw together this Parliament’s examination of the renewed social agenda. I regard the issues covered in the Silva Peneda report as an important part of this Commission’s legacy: an approach of access, solidarity and opportunity to ensure that our policies fit both our enduring core values and the realities of society today. I really want to congratulate Mr Silva Peneda on his great work and I think that our cooperation, namely with my colleague in the Commission, Vladimír Špidla, has been of great importance.
This agenda, an agenda of social inclusion and social innovation, seeks to empower and equip Europeans to deal with rapidly changing realities shaped by globalisation, technological progress and ageing societies and help those having difficulties coping with such changes.
We cannot separate our economic and our social agenda: there can be no economic recovery on the foundations of social collapse, just as there can be no social progress in an economic desert.
I am grateful for the detailed examination of these proposals by Parliament, on which Commissioner Špidla will respond in more detail later in the debate. Allow me to focus on one issue for which I feel a particular paternity, and that is the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund. I would like to thank Parliament for treating the Commission’s proposals for revamping the Fund with such speed. The new rules will improve the uptake of financial assistance for the redeployment and retraining of workers who are losing their jobs due to the current recession; more firms will be eligible, and the Community budget will shoulder a larger part of the costs. Your vote this week is excellent news ahead of the Prague Employment Summit.
The Employment Summit this week gives an opportunity to keep employment at the top of the European agenda where it belongs. I want this Summit to yield concrete, tangible results. I am hopeful that it will. And, rather than being a one-off event, I also hope that it will be another milestone in an ongoing process that started well before the crisis – a process of cooperation between the Commission, the Member States and the social partners – which will go on throughout the crisis and beyond.
As President of the Commission I will take this agenda to the European Council in June, for the attention of all 27 heads of state and government. It deserves no less. Europe is not only an economic and political project. It has always been, and always will be, a social project as well.
Unemployment is the Commission’s main concern. The Commission is working tirelessly to ensure that everyone with political responsibility in Europe hears this call, and devotes all of their energy to seeking an end to the crisis.
I know that there is no need for me to explain the importance and seriousness of unemployment to those within the European Parliament. Every day one of your electorate loses his job, and three more worry that they will suffer the same fate.
In March, the European Council approved the initiative by the Commission and the Council’s Czech Presidency to devote a summit to the ‘employment’ dimension of the current economic and financial crisis. This issue has been our main concern since the start of the crisis, and led to our proposal for a European economic recovery plan last December. Its implementation at national and European level is already playing a major part in keeping existing jobs and creating new ones.
However, we now urgently need to evaluate its impact on employment. We must learn the necessary lessons in order to adjust our action in the coming months. I still think that the issue of employment would have justified a full European summit, a summit that would bring together the 27 Heads of State or Government.
The March European Council decided on a more restrained format, to my great regret. Nevertheless, that is no reason for the Commission to scale down its ambitions in relation to the content of this employment summit, and its monitoring during the Swedish and Spanish Presidencies to come.
The European dimension is absolutely vital for two main reasons. Firstly, we must send a clear signal to citizens, letting them know that the European Union clearly understands the true nature of the crisis, that it is not just a matter for the economists and bankers, but that it is the well-being of citizens, workers and their families in the four corners of Europe that is at stake.
Our response to the crisis must not be limited to clinical technical measures to resolve regulatory problems. It should draw its essence from our most fundamental values: social justice and solidarity. Our response must be perceived in this way, as a response stemming from the importance we give to certain essential values."@en1
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