Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-20-Speech-3-051"

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"Mr President, before it even opened, the Barcelona European Council created apprehension and suspicion in the minds of some people, who were afraid that it would go back on the Lisbon strategy. Although we were aware of the enormous ambition of the objectives defined in Lisbon and of the different and more difficult current economic climate, we never doubted that the progress that has been made in the field of social policy would be honoured by the Member States, as it has been, and in particular by the Spanish Presidency of the European Union, whom I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate. In this regard, I wish to highlight the boost given to creating active policies for full employment, and the reform of the labour market is a step which is crucial to job creation. Of particular importance is the emphasis given to pursuing EU policies in the field of providing incentives for competitiveness and of improving employment, increasing the professional and geographical mobility of workers, which requires greater attention to the training of the workforce and ensuring that it is better qualified to work within the knowledge society and the recognition that the ageing of the population requires new and creative answers. The proposal intended to create legislation providing for partial retirement as an instrument to enable older workers in the labour market to take voluntary later retirement, without undermining the need to speed up the reforms of the pensions system, is, therefore, very welcome. One of the groups most badly affected by unemployment in the European Union is women. We must encourage their participation in the labour market, which will remain a utopian ideal unless active measures to reconcile family life with professional life are adopted. A joint effort at Community, intergovernmental, regional and local level is, therefore, crucial to create infrastructures for childcare and to support the elderly, specifically by making available and implementing appropriations from the European Social Fund, in addition to adopting tax and social measures. We feel that there is a clear need for coordination and synchronisation between the social and economic dimensions. In fact, only through the greater creation of wealth, which is distributed fairly and equitably, can there be greater social justice."@en1

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