Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-05-17-Speech-1-075"
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"en.20100517.15.1-075"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, at a time when circumstances dictate the need for exceptionally responsive policies, the subject on which I am going to speak to you shows that perseverance is also a virtue.
As you can see, Madam President, I do not have the time to tell you here about everything else that I like in the directive, but you can see that we are still capable of producing European directives that serve the interests of Europeans, in the social sphere, and which even have the effect of reducing distortions of competition within the single market. I am grateful to everyone, including my colleagues from the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, who contributed to the directive.
Since the early 1980s, I have been continually calling for a reform of the 1986 directive, because it did not achieve its main objective, which was to improve the status of assisting spouses in family businesses in the areas of social security and maternity protection.
By adopting my 1997 report, Parliament had already called for the amendment of that directive, the wording of which was too timid, even though the Council of Ministers had not even endorsed the more ambitious European Commission proposal of 1984. In spite of numerous reminders, the Commission needed a great deal of persuading up until October 2008, when it finally proposed repealing the watered-down 1986 directive in order to replace it with a text with a more solid legal basis.
Parliament adopted its amendments at first reading on 4 May 2009. In order to improve the Commission proposal, we felt, in particular, that it should be mandatory for spouses and recognised partners to become members of the social protection scheme of self-employed workers so as to ensure, among other things, that they are personally entitled to an old age pension.
Indeed, if membership is voluntary, too many spouses tend to turn down the opportunity to create rights for themselves and find themselves – for example, after a divorce – without social protection, even if they have worked for decades in the family business and contributed to its prosperity.
Unfortunately, this principle of mandatory membership did not obtain a majority in the Council of Ministers. What is more, the latter took nine months to come up with a common position. It was finally issued by the Spanish Presidency, which has demonstrated exceptional tact and perseverance. I should like to thank the Presidency and Mrs Reding’s staff, with whom I have been negotiating since January. Thanks to their understanding and their diligence, we were able to reach an agreement with the Council that will enable the new directive to enter into force after our vote tomorrow.
Of course, we had to make concessions, but we have the satisfaction of having served the interests of self-employed workers well. Accounting as they do for 16% of the labour force, with a third of this percentage being women, they represent a considerable force in Europe. Their spouses – women mainly – who actually help to run the family business, whether in the agricultural, craft trade, commercial or professional sector, are still too often, in some Member States, invisible workers who, if affiliated, would increase the activity rate and would also help to achieve the objectives of the 2020 strategy more quickly.
Since I have recalled the long and difficult birth of this directive, I must mention the progress made as regards maternity protection for self-employed women and the spouses of self-employed workers. At their request, the new directive enables them to take 14 weeks’ leave. As the German saying goes
or politics is the art of the possible. I know that there are some Members in this House – fortunately they are in the minority – who believe that self-employed workers and their spouses should sort out their social security for themselves. I am very familiar with this argument, having heard it 20, 30 years ago in my own country, when it was made compulsory for farmers’ spouses to join the agricultural pension fund.
Today, these people are happy. I would also like to stress that the progress that I described upholds the principle of subsidiarity because it leaves the Member States free to decide how they arrange the social protection of spouses, in accordance with their national law, and whether they implement it on a mandatory or a voluntary basis."@en1
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"Politik ist die Kunst des Erreichbaren"1
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