Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-05-19-Speech-3-309"
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"en.20100519.22.3-309"2
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"Mr President, we are in the middle of the most fundamental crisis the European Union has witnessed in its history and yet almost all decisions on the strategic direction are taken at government level. The European Parliament has been allowed to sit on the sidelines but no more than that.
Time and again, the entire debate today has circled around specific issues concerning the Europe 2020 strategy for employment and growth, which gives the false impression that we are talking about the future of Europe and the course of its further development. We might be able to ask oral questions about the political relevance of the EU 2020 strategy in the context of the current economic and financial crisis, but we are not allowed to bring our demands to bear on this strategy and change it, make up for shortfalls or, perhaps, even change the priorities.
Instead of being involved in this strategic cross-roads, what we have experienced on almost every single point that we have debated here in this House in recent months is getting caught up in the power play between the institutions in spite of, or perhaps even because of, the Treaty of Lisbon. This has mainly been to the detriment of the European Parliament. Both the EU 2020 strategy and, for example, the integrated employment guidelines, which the Chair of the Employment Committee has spoken about, regard Parliament as a body that is merely to be informed or consulted.
Also, all the individual reports tabled here today far from present an overall view of the demands or the positions of the European Parliament regarding the European strategy. We want to introduce a whole raft of specific changes.
In the last parliamentary term, the European Parliament put specific demands to the Council and Member States concerning the fight against poverty, the introduction of minimum income benefits and an EU-wide poverty-proof minimum wage. None of that has been incorporated into the strategy. On the contrary: there is even the risk that objectives, such as the fight against poverty and the reduction of poverty by 25%, may even disappear from the current strategy text because they do not accord with the skill and the interests of the Member States or the governments.
Even the EU’s employment record over the past ten years has clearly shown that atypical and precarious jobs, in particular, have risen to 60%. However, the huge rise in atypical jobs should lead us to set up a model in the strategy and in the guidelines which is directed at secure and poverty-proof jobs. Now, that is a fundamental demand which we are dealing with here.
However, as long as the European Union, the institutions and their specific policies do not send out signals to those who are marginalised, who live in poverty or who have no work, or to young people who have no future prospects, we will not be able to win these groups over to the idea that a common European Union is a future-proof project. That is a democratic deficit which the current EU 2020 strategy does nothing to address and we should be fighting it together with our citizens."@en1
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