Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-07-15-Speech-3-063"
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"en.20090715.5.3-063"2
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"Mr President, I would first like to thank the Swedish Prime Minister for his presentation of what he and his government want to do in the coming six months.
We know that we are in a tough starting position; the crisis is deep. It is about jobs, it is about dramatically growing chasms, it is about a generation of young people who are going straight into unemployment and of course it is about the environmental and climate crisis.
This has also been described by Prime Minister Reinfeldt, but it is the conclusions that are surprising. What has been highlighted as the central issue for the Swedish Presidency is not jobs or investments, but rather the Member States’ ability to maintain budgetary discipline. As we approach 27 million unemployed in the EU, the clearest message from the Swedish Presidency is thus: budgetary discipline. This is not only wrong, but also worrying.
In this area Mr Reinfeldt’s party – contrary to what has been said here earlier – comes with some hefty historical domestic policy baggage. The last conservative Swedish Government led Sweden into economic disintegration, and it was a social democratic government that had to devote 10 years to sorting out our public finances. However, we cannot allow old shortcomings in domestic policy to set the agenda for the whole of the EU at a time of serious crisis. What is needed is major investments in jobs, training and green change – not putting anorexic economies on a diet by means of budgetary discipline.
John Monks, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, has also expressed concern that the social dimension of the Swedish Presidency has been given such low priority. Mostly fine words, says Mr Monks, very little in the way of real plans. My group shares these concerns, and they also include the trade union rights of workers, as Martin Schulz stated in his speech. Workers’ terms have deteriorated following the Laval judgment and following the Viking, Rüffert and Luxembourg judgments. Their rights have been weakened.
What I and my group want from the Swedish Presidency is a definite commitment that the EU’s workers will have their full trade union rights restored. Trade union rights must take precedence over free movement. That must be extremely clear. We do not want to live in a Europe in which the crisis is met with budgetary discipline and with confrontation. Is this matter even on the agenda, I would like to ask the new president, Prime Minister Reinfeldt."@en1
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