Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-02-16-Speech-3-054-000"
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"en.20110216.5.3-054-000"2
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"Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I would like to say how much I welcome this first opportunity to debate the European Semester and the importance that should be given, in this semester, to the Annual Growth Survey.
Within this framework, you, Commissioner, along with the members of the College, have decided to renew the Employment Guidelines and this Parliament intends to acknowledge that decision. We would simply like to draw your attention to three points.
The first concerns the content of this Annual Growth Survey. We are struck by the fact that the issues of employment and unemployment appear to be secondary to budgetary consolidation objectives. When you raise these issues, which are directly linked to the operation of the labour market, we feel that you are breaching the social contract between the people of the Member States and their governments. You are proposing that the retirement age should be raised, that the amount paid in unemployment allowance should be reduced, that wage levels and the mechanisms for calculating these should be modified, and that shops should be allowed to open on Sundays.
We believe that this constitutes an extremely dangerous breach of the social contract. We also believe that greater attention should be paid to the most vulnerable populations, whether they are young people, women, older people or the disabled. We also think that there is a considerable danger of seeing budgetary consolidation as the be-all and end-all of this Annual Growth Survey.
Our second concern is the fact that, as you have said yourself, you are going to draw up national reform programmes on the basis of this Annual Growth Survey. However, it is here that important matters will be decided. How are you putting the debate in Parliament on those issues to good use, now that the guidelines are being renewed? How do you envisage democratic debate on this issue? How do you join up Article 148, which coordinates employment policies, with Article 12, which coordinates economic policies?
There is a great deal of confusion today for the European Parliament, insofar as we are considering at the same time, the Europe 2020 Strategy, President Van Rompuy’s working parties, the package on economic governance, into which this Parliament is putting a great deal of effort, and a revision of the Treaty to maintain a European financial stability mechanism. Moreover, while this is in train, we are also debating the possible amendment of that mechanism. You are launching the European semester at the same time as Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy are launching the competitiveness pact. At the same time as all this, you are renewing the Employment Guidelines, which in all likelihood will be no more than a very vague space to be defined in these national programmes.
So, Commissioner, I would like to alert you to a third concern of ours. When, last year, with the support of the Belgian Presidency, we managed to change the direction of the Employment Guidelines, there was one point on which we placed great emphasis: the issue of governance. What do we mean by this governance? It means that economic and social policies cannot be conducted successfully if they are not accompanied by genuine democratic debate. Now, democratic debate means giving power to the European Parliament, power to national parliaments and genuinely respecting, involving and including social partners. We often have the impression that your proposals ignore these elements, which are part and parcel of the democratic life of our countries.
I believe that, unless we get to grips with this issue, we are in danger of being inconsistent, of turning our people away from what we are trying to achieve together and of neglecting that which is the key to our success, namely the Community spirit."@en1
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