Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-10-25-Speech-2-533-000"
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"en.20111025.30.2-533-000"2
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"Madam President, I would like to thank Ms Bastos for this report and all Members of Parliament for their proposals to strengthen the actions set out in the Agenda for New Skills and Jobs.
There is a wider and economic social cost such as tax revenue loss, the extra cost of health and medical services, the price to pay for crime and mainly social exclusion – we are talking about real social exclusion now. The Young Opportunities Initiative announced by President Barroso in his State of the Union speech in this House will focus on many issues, including getting young people who have left school or training without any vocational qualification back into school or training and, secondly, providing opportunities for work experience to those who have a qualification but have not found work. The initiative will give the Member States and all the actors involved the necessary support for delivering on the measures.
As the report rightly points out, it is vital not to forget society’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in this time of economic difficulty. Here we have the European Platform Against Poverty and Social Exclusion, and a commitment to lift out of poverty at least 20 million people by 2020. Last week, the first annual convention of the European Platform Against Poverty took place in Kraków, with very good results.
Let me finish by saying something about the EU’s future spending plans. On 6 October, the Commission brought forward a proposal on cohesion policy legislation for 2014-2020, and on the role of the European Social Fund. We propose that after 2013, that fund should increase by at least 7.5% and thus account for at least 25% of cohesion spending, or at least EUR 84 billion for the seven-year period up to 2020. The Social Fund will contribute to three of the five EU headline targets: employment, education and reducing poverty and social exclusion.
Our proposal for a regulation on the European Social Fund in the future involves allocating at least 25% of that fund to promoting social inclusion and combating poverty. That is a substantial increase on the current EUR 10 billion. I hope that the Member States and Parliament will support this very significant increase for the most vulnerable groups. I welcome the fact that we can share views on how the Agenda should be implemented, and look forward to working with Parliament on this in the future.
Today, we have to recognise that we face a challenge. It is a challenge for the European Union as a whole, and for many other regions in the world: how best to support growth and the jobs which are so desperately needed in a climate of stringent fiscal consolidation. That is the challenge, and there is no easy answer to it. A lot depends on political leadership and decisions on the financial and economic crisis, but let us try to do what we can do, in the light of our roles.
In order to step up the impact and visibility of the Commission’s contribution to the Europe 2020 goals and to meet the deadline – we are at about 75% of the target employment rate – we have undertaken to present a set of employment initiatives in early 2012. Let me now inform you about those concrete actions.
First, the Commission will duly reopen the debate on flexicurity policy as a means of tackling labour market segmentation, so that everyone in Europe, whatever their background or sector and wherever they live, can have a quality job. The conference on flexicurity on 14 November will provide an opportunity for all stakeholders to present their views on this key issue.
Secondly, in the present economic situation, there is unlikely to be net job creation in the Union unless the Member States step up their policy to stimulate labour demand. That is something we have to realise. There is nothing automatic about creating new jobs. The Commission will therefore present principles for generating conditions that foster job creation for the benefit of all key players, including the public authorities and the social partners.
Thirdly, geographical and occupational mobility is a crucial way of tackling imbalances between sectors and regions where there is high unemployment and where there are labour shortages. The Commission will therefore outline the way EURES, our tool for mobility, can be modernised and turned into a powerful tool. We also intend to open a debate on how the Union can face the situation of the mobile workforce, and particularly of migrants.
We also need to see how employment policy might address the long-term challenges facing us so that we will be able to make the most of employment opportunities in the future. In particular, the restructuring of the economy and of businesses, as we discussed previously, and the transition to a low carbon economy, should be managed and anticipated better.
Lastly, the Commission will bring forward proposals on developing a more strategic and integrated skills governance model. Indeed, initiatives at national and EU level currently suffer from a lack of coordination and of mechanisms for exchanging information on the anticipation and analysis of skills.
The most pressing challenge for our societies today is the high rate of unemployment among young people. That is the real problem. To tackle it, the Member States committed themselves in June this year to implementing a comprehensive set of measures under the Europe 2020 flagship initiative Youth on the Move. One particular concern is that 7.5 million young people aged between 15 and 24 are neither in employment, nor in education or in training. Just imagine that. We are talking about 7.5 million young people. Unless something is done, they will become a generation of wasted talent."@en1
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