Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-11-Speech-2-140"
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"en.20030311.6.2-140"2
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".
Mr President, as we have discussed the individual subjects broached by the honourable Members on several occasions, I have just three brief comments to make.
The first concerns the objectives of the spring Council. It is important that the Greek Presidency has made employment a priority at the spring Council. This will be the second time since Lisbon that employment has been one of the Council’s priorities. Interestingly, it would appear from a series of initiatives between prime ministers over the last month that they are all promoting employment as a priority and at the spring Council, war permitting, it will be top of the agenda. However, we must bear in mind that the quantitative target of full employment by 2010 set in Lisbon depended on two basic preconditions: 3% annual growth and the implementation of a reform package.
As far as the first target is concerned, we are clearly behind schedule. In several countries growth is below 3%; in fact, a number of countries have almost zero growth, which by definition will make it very difficult to achieve our targets.
On the second issue, the positive evaluation of the employment strategy notwithstanding, numerous reforms need speeding up. The message, as far as reforming the Employment Strategy is concerned, is that we cannot insist on reforms relating to the labour market and to the modernisation of social systems and to another set of policies relating to the employment strategy. I think this is where the main difference lies; in other words, labour market reforms are part and parcel of the Employment Strategy, which is much wider and which, as many members said, ranges from taxation to education.
So we believe that it is very important that the spring Council and Parliament will be sticking to the Lisbon objectives; it shows that we all hope to be able to make up the last two years’ lack of growth over coming years.
My second point has to do with discrimination. Briefly, one of the three basic objectives is a non-discriminatory job market, and what we are proposing to the Council is that there should be individual quantitative targets for groups vulnerable to discrimination.
My third point has to do with women. For the first time, more women than men have entered the labour market. Of the ten million jobs created between 1997 and 2001, 75% were filled by women, a clear signal that our targets are being achieved and our polices are effective. I shall of course be insisting on gender mainstreaming in all measures and priorities."@en1
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