Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-10-06-Speech-3-146"
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"en.20101006.13.3-146"2
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"Mr President, I have here a well-worn, annotated, underlined, dog-eared, tea-stained copy of the Lisbon Treaty. For 12 months, this was my constant travelling companion when I was trying to persuade Irish citizens to vote ‘yes’. When Irish citizens asked me why they should vote ‘yes’, one of the top five reasons that I gave them was that this treaty would bring about a more social Europe.
Just 12 months ago, we ratified this treaty and now we, as politicians, have to deliver on our promises. We have spoken about the new horizontal social clause – Article 9 – that obliges the Union to consider the social consequences of decisions when making its policies. This is a cross-cutting objective and it gives us greater scope to be more ambitious when writing, amending or implementing EU legislation, but Article 9 does not guarantee desired policy outcomes. It is a powerful tool which is at our disposal, but we have to ask ourselves whether we are using it or whether it is just window dressing.
Social policy was poorly built into the original treaties, but I believe it is much stronger in the Lisbon Treaty. Apart from the Protocol on services of general interest, Article 14 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union has been mentioned. That clearly states the shared responsibility of Member States and the EU as regards SGIs. To date, the EU has applied internal market rules, but Article 14 states that in the application of the treaties ‘the Union and the Member States … shall take care that such services operate on the basis of principles and conditions, particularly economic and financial conditions, which enable them to fulfil their missions.’ That is a shift in EU policy and it must be reflected in the Commission’s communications and proposals.
Also, in the Council, the anti-discrimination directive is still blocked. That is an important piece of legislation. We need to see it implemented. So, while the fundamental principles are established and social policy legislation is protected in the Lisbon Treaty, the future direction of social policy is not settled definitively. We – the Commission, the Council and Parliament – can, and must, use the tools provided by Lisbon."@en1
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