Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2013-07-04-Speech-4-086-000"
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"en.20130704.9.4-086-000"2
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"Madam President, my thanks to colleagues who have taken part in today’s discussion. I think we have a great deal of consensus here. I just want to reiterate certain of the points, such as the issue of the social impact assessment of cuts that have been made. I think this is coming through as something which people feel is extremely important. I know that it was said that it was almost as if we were demanding of Member States that they do additional homework that we should not be asking them to do. Well, in my earlier life I was a teacher, so maybe I am used to asking people to do homework, but it is also the fact that our Member States have signed up and made a number of commitments.
It was pointed out that they signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. That carries certain responsibilities and implications with it but, even in terms of the national reform plans, there are certain things there which our Member States have agreed to do and agreed to share, and therefore the issue – whether it is about benchmarking, impact assessment or whatever – is about taking account of what they are doing and looking at how they are going to deal with the effects of that in terms of the anti-poverty targets, in terms also, as many have stressed, of the issues of human dignity and indeed what we consider to be solidarity within the European Union and acceptable standards, which I think is extremely important.
The issue about the growing inequalities is also something that I think we should really be concerned about. We are well aware of what the adverse impacts of health inequalities are for people’s life chances. There is a lot I think that can be done, even if you are not looking at particularly radical reform: at least close the gaps in systems that allow people to fall through them and lose their right to access care – people who were maybe working on temporary contracts or whatever and who therefore do not actually gain the health benefits that they might otherwise have done in full-term contracts. There are things that can be done to reduce the gaps, to reduce the barriers in terms of access to care.
A lot of points have been made, as well, about the role of carers themselves. It is true – we have heard the figures from all of our Member States about what it actually saves public services when people are caring on an informal basis – but that does need to be recognised. People should not be asked to give up their opportunities to work – their own work-life balance, as it were – to provide that ongoing service without some form of recognition. Recognition within the pension system was mentioned, but it is also extremely important in terms of the support and the care of carers.
There is more that can be done as well, we believe, in terms of actually improving the quality, the decent work side, of those who are providing care on a paid basis. Given the future demands that we have seen, we need to address that very rapidly. Yes, there is money there from the Cohesion Fund, not as much as many of us would have liked, but again that was a political choice made by our national governments, and indeed some in Parliament, but we ought to make sure that this money is spent effectively and to the maximum. Thank you again for the debate and we look forward to the follow-up action on this."@en1
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