Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-03-12-Speech-3-015"
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"en.20080312.3.3-015"2
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"Mr President, we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the European Parliament today. This should surely be an opportunity for the forthcoming summit to grant this House the right of initiative at long last!
I furthermore believe that the European Parliament’s 50th anniversary is the right occasion for me and my Group to make clear that neither the Council nor the Commission should expect this House to be docile and indulgent and full of adulation in future. It will still be our duty to stand up for those people in the European Union who are often ignored: the 70 million or more people in the EU who are living in or at risk of poverty, including 19 million children.
If, as we understand, the European Council is to welcome the Commission’s strategic report on the renewed Lisbon Strategy and congratulate itself on its own success, then it should devote rather more than just a few lines to those EU citizens, those children, who derive no benefit at all from the achievements of the Lisbon Strategy.
The direction and priorities of the strategy are wrong, as are the resulting policies! Mr Watson, it is not our protests against the aggressive global conduct of Unilever, Thyssen-Krupp, Nokia and many others that are unrealistic, but the refusal of the Commission and Council to confront the global corporations that are acting so aggressively and attach the appropriate priority to protecting the employees concerned and those who are socially excluded.
I can only agree with the European Anti-Poverty Network when it complains that the fight against poverty, social exclusion and a growing social divide is still not being tackled and backed up with the necessary clarity and determination.
The Network addressed four questions to the spring summit on 10 March, and the European Parliament should specifically endorse these questions. How precisely do you propose to strengthen the social dimension of the Lisbon Strategy? What precise actions are proposed to meet the commitment ‘to make a decisive impact on the eradication of poverty’? Given that 18.9 million of those who are officially poor (78 million) are in employment, what measures are proposed to address in-work poverty? What measures are proposed to ensure that rising energy prices do not threaten social cohesion and social inclusion? These four questions are fundamental, I believe, if economic growth really is to be sustainable in social and environmental terms."@en1
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