Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-05-Speech-2-183"
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"en.20060905.23.2-183"2
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".
Mr President, I am sure that everyone, in principle, is in agreement with the European social model, even if they only pay lip-service to it. Who can have any objection to a shared scheme of values, or have anything against peace, social justice, freedom, equality and so on?
While EU politics is far from lacking in fine principles and guidelines, in the day-to-day life that goes on in parallel with it there prevails a raw reality, with, among other things, the pursuit of short-term profit and often unscrupulous exploitation and competition. Many watch passively, or look away, while the few become richer and more and more people become poorer and poorer.
This document makes only passing reference to the most serious social problems, such as extreme poverty, discrimination against immigrants, the grim lot of the long-term unemployed; it is insufficiently rigorous in highlighting inequality and injustice, and the blame for this must lie with the subsidiarity principle – good thing though that is in itself. If what is termed harmonisation in the economy is to be regarded as the most obvious thing in the world, then the EU ought also to say ‘yes’ to harmonisation measures in the social sphere, starting by bringing taxes into line and then moving on to debate minimum and basic incomes and the citizen's wage, and then saying 'yes' in particular to the harmonisation of the pension system.
Justice can only be a valid principle in the EU if the law, throughout Europe, accords full protection to the weakest members of society."@en1
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