MEPs want social considerations on a par with macroeconomic ones in Europe 2020
Today (November 4), Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in the committee for Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL) adopted with a broad majority an oral question and a motion for a resolution (MfR) on the employment and social aspects of the Europe 2020 Strategy. The aim of this is to call on the European Commission to take into account the outcome of the on-going public consultation before publishing concrete proposals for the mid-term review of the strategy. Social Platform welcomes in particular the MfR as it reflects many of the concerns and recommendations we expressed in our Position paper on the Mid-term Review of Europe 2020, as well as in our response to the public consultation questionnaire.
In line with Social Platform’s position, the EMPL calls for a rebalancing within the strategy of financial and economic priorities with strong social priorities to ensure social policies are enabled. It is absolutely clear for them that employment and social considerations should be put on a par with macroeconomic ones.
MEPs regret that the focus of current policies stays solely on economic growth without acknowledging the need for an inclusive, rights-based and sustainable approach. They point out how the EU is still far from achieving the employment and poverty targets of the strategy, and call on member states to translate the EU targets more ambitiously and concretely into national targets. EMPL also requested that member states report every year on the progress made towards the achievement of the targets, and that the Commission also provides an annual Progress Report on the implementation of the strategy and all its headline targets.
EMPL has previously welcomed the scoreboard of employment and social indicators and its integration in the European Semester, but on top of this calls for using this scoreboard as an early-warning mechanism in order to develop suitable policies. Social Platform very much hopes to see the EU developing this further by complementing the scoreboard with a system that triggers preventive and corrective actions once the indicators in the scoreboard reach a certain value.
In addition to social partners, civil society should be consulted in a meaningful way and such consultation has to become a systematic element of the strategy and at all stages. To this end, EMPL wants to see the Commission put forward the guidelines they promised to develop in the past.
The adopted text will now be put before the parliament as a whole, and the debate and vote is scheduled for the last week of November.
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