Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-06-Speech-4-031"
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"en.20031106.2.4-031"2
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"Madam President, the increase in unemployment, in insecure employment and in social exclusion cast doubt upon the concept of a Europe that champions social justice and solidarity. We know that there are more than 15 million unemployed people in the European Union and more than 60 million who live on less than 60% of the average national income. These are problems that mainly affect women, but also the elderly living on very low pensions, immigrants, children, people with disabilities and workers in insecure and badly paid jobs. The situation is considerably worse in the candidate countries that will be joining the Union in May next year.
In light of this worsening socio-economic situation, measures must be adopted that are different to those used to date, because disparities have increased, cohesion has weakened and no real progress has been made as regards gender equality policy. The current situation calls for absolute priority no longer to be given to complying with the Stability Pact and, on the contrary, for this to be suspended so that its irrational criteria for nominal convergence can be reviewed. The current situation calls for the primacy of monetarist and competition policies to be ended and for resolving these serious social problems to be put on the agenda, for compliance with the Social Policy Agenda and for an effective public investment policy in order to create the fifteen million jobs that the European Union needs.
Consequently, as stated in my recent report on implementing the Social Policy Agenda, which this plenary adopted in September, priority must be given to solving the serious problems of unemployment and poverty – including persistent poverty – in all Community policies, specifically in competition policy (and since the Commissioner responsible for the common agricultural policy is here with us, this could at least help us to look at farming issues and here too amend policy, with a view to combating poverty and social exclusion), not forgetting the Structural Funds and the Stability Pact.
We regret the fact that the Commission is not only failing to comply with the Nice social agenda, but also still has no plans to present new initiatives in areas already requested by the European Parliament, which has insisted that these be drawn up rapidly. This is a long list, which other speakers have already referred to, but which we also adopted at the sitting of 3 September and for which I once again express my support, in addition to agreeing with all the questions that have been put here. I repeat the need for effective measures, for mechanisms for intervention in the field of company relocations, and of the directives on Article 13, both with regard to women’s rights in all the various areas of employment and to people with disabilities. We must make good the delays in improving the directives intended to promote health and safety in the workplace, specifically for women, and the proposals that this Parliament has approved must be implemented."@en1
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