Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-03-Speech-2-335"
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"en.20020903.13.2-335"2
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".
The purpose of the annual scoreboard for the implementation of the social policy agenda is to ascertain how much progress has been made towards the objectives laid down in Lisbon and Nice. The essence of these objectives is the creation of a European social model to eliminate poverty and unemployment, create high-status jobs, encourage lifelong learning, modernise the social security system and do away with all forms of discrimination. The 2000-2006 period is a crucial time in this respect as changes in the economy, demographics and migration have rarely been as great as they are now.
It is therefore to be expected that Parliament, as the mouthpiece
of what is of concern to the European population, should keep a close watch on assessment of progress. The document put before us by the Commission gives us a first-class overview of the activities which have been undertaken and of what we can expect in the near future. But what is missing – and this is my main criticism – is a six-year summary of what has to be done. Parliament takes the view that the extent of annual progress can only really be judged in the light of the targets set for the six-year period in question. Parliament expects more from the Commission than an annual report. It requires a six-year programme containing initiatives to be taken and the instruments to be used for each initiative, such as legislation, open coordination or negotiations between social partners, and deadlines for the completion of these initiatives. As part of its interim evaluation in 2003, the Commission must attempt to work out a different type of scoreboard and present it to Parliament. Parliament already made this request last year and is repeating it this year.
This brings me on to my second criticism: the lack of Parliament's involvement. The Commission knows full well that the European Parliament is the greatest advocate of the social aspect of European development, much more so than the Council of Ministers. We have plenty of examples of this, starting with European legislation which Parliament usually pushes further than the Council of Ministers would like. I therefore fail to understand why the Commission took so little trouble to involve Parliament at an early stage in devising the social policy programme. The Commission's document is dated 19 February 2002 and was approved at the Spring Summit in March. Parliament needs at least 2 months to produce a report through its committees and plenary sessions, and that does not give us much time. I would therefore advise the Commission to ensure that it submits its next report by the end of December, so that a useful dialogue with Parliament can be organised. It should be possible for this dialogue to progress positively and quickly if the Commission takes account of the comments made in Parliament's two previous reports.
Finally, a few words on one of the instruments of social policy, open coordination. The success of this method lies in the fact that it has given us a way to coordinate the policy of the 15 Member States, to bring the 15 Member States behind a coherent set of objectives and to provide the 15 Member States with best practices to achieve those objectives. And all this in areas where binding European Union legislation is not desirable or not possible. The difficulty for Parliament is that its involvement is not, or not adequately, regulated. The method has a high input from many groups outside this Parliament. This raises the question of whether the use of the open coordination method and the participation of the European Parliament can be better aligned in the context of the Convention and the Intergovernmental Conference. We hope the Commission will support us in this."@en1
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