Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2014-11-25-Speech-2-028-000"
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"en.20141125.5.2-028-000"2
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"Madam President, last March the Commission produced a document which took stock of progress on the EU2020 Strategy, and the document itself makes very sobering reading. We are informed that levels of private debt among households and companies – already high in some Member States – have increased significantly during the crisis. It points to rising levels of unemployment and poverty, with the long-term unemployed – those out of work for more than one year – increasing by over 80% between 2008 and 2012.
Now there are some positives in the report, in that the share of young people in tertiary education has increased and the percentage of early school leavers has dropped. But equally, the share of NEETs – at 13% in 2012 – is a major source of concern. Alarmingly, it also points out that, although significant inequalities already existed in some Member States prior to the crisis, those divergences have amplified both within and between Member States. From a social perspective it warns that, while GDP and wealth have marginally increased overall, the crisis has constrained redistributive effects.
So, on my part at least, all of this gives rise to a growing alarm – even panic – at what is happening across the EU, a continent that I believe is fracturing economically and politically. Those of us who support the EU as an entity need to find ways to help and support Member States to deal with this immense challenge. Some of the challenges are fiscal – are debt-related – and while they are crucial, we are not discussing them here this morning. This morning we are trying to see how we can strengthen the employment and social aspects of the EU2020 Strategy. Even though citizens will not see an immediate impact, if we can find agreement on proposals to help Member States achieve those targets, then I believe we will have done valuable work.
So that is why we welcome, for the first time, the use on the scoreboard of key employment and social indicators such as child poverty levels, access to health care and homelessness. But crucially, we ask that the scoreboard be used as an early warning mechanism in order to develop suitable policies, otherwise we are just number-crunching, we are box-ticking, and that is less than useless.
We also ask that employment and social considerations be put on a par with macroeconomic ones. I personally support this proposal. I know there are issues about a legal base, but I want to ask the Commissioner: What is your view on this, how do you see the possibilities of rebalancing the economic and the social, how can we make it real rather than just talking about it? This is not just about spending money. Yes, we will have the details of Juncker’s package tomorrow, but we need to be sure first of all that it is growth-friendly investment, and secondly that there is a redistributive effect from this growth. So I am asking the Commissioner: How specifically do you propose to deliver on those objectives? I was interested to hear the Council speaking earlier about integrating the 2020 objectives into the European Semester. You said yourself there is an imbalance there. We need to see how to get rid of that imbalance.
Finally, job creation is crucial, and in that, ALDE strongly supports the elimination of bureaucracy and unnecessary burdens for SMEs. But equally, we must target decent jobs. I agree with my colleague Casa: it is crucial to address the abuse of vulnerable people."@en1
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