Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-06-10-Speech-1-113"
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"en.20020610.6.1-113"2
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"Mr President, this communication maps out an integrated social policy. The rapporteur is therefore right to see this as a proposal of huge political significance, which is why her position deserves the backing of a large majority. First and foremost, this draft report reaffirms the political will to take combined action against exclusion at European Union level expressed at previous summits.
Having accepted – and in adopting the social agenda we have demonstrated that we do accept – that expenditure on social policy is also a productive factor, we feel that, if the European Union is to stand by what it says, we need to examine current spending restrictions in this light. We also clearly recognise, and this too is an accepted fact, that we need to join forces in the fight against exclusion and coordinate action on employment, health, housing, education and social protection. However, the difficulties in implementing these proposals are one of the crucial points. Indeed, the more vociferously we clamour for an integrated approach, the greater our responsibility to overcome the obstacles to implementing it. We need a crusade to change practices and customs and to overcome resistance, both from the political leadership and from the officials responsible for implementing this policy. And if there is to be greater interest in this objective on the part of the trades union, they too need to revise their priorities. Finally, there are inherent difficulties in organising substantiated public debates which have the right results, at both the design and evaluation stages.
Generally speaking, although the different Member States are trying to move away from political measures scattered across various sectors and towards an integrated approach, suitable mechanisms are lacking and the agencies responsible appear unwilling to get their act together. We must welcome the fact that the communication takes account of new dangers of exclusion as the result of new structural changes under way in the European Union, the most important being, as it rightly points out, changes on the job market and the privatisation of public services.
Although, having said which, the European Union itself has no clear objectives in its liberalisation policy as to what should stay in the public sector. The European Union needs to set an example by properly coordinating its individual policies. That is the only way we shall increase our credibility in the fight against social insecurity, which is one of the main reasons the far-right is gaining in popularity. We have to be clear on one thing: that the open method of coordination on social policy and the proposed international plans for national action against poverty need to be addressed by the Member States and the Commission with the same degree of earnestness as the stability pact and budgetary discipline.
I should like to close by adding that this draft will only be of any use if the Commission is able to supply us with specific progress indicators in the immediate future. The Commission has specific responsibilities here. We do not want, during the second design stage of national plans to combat exclusion, to have to spend yet more time on the basic challenges of and principles behind non-exclusion policies; we want to examine the measures needed to convert all these principles into operational plans, the success rate of the new methods and the potential for monitoring specific added value. We should, I think, have a simple, concise report on these issues at the 2003 summit."@en1
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