Social NGOs: EU needs to put social concerns at the heart of its political agenda 21-02-2007 The Social Platform has presented a three-point plan to reinforce social
Europe. The Social Platform, which brings together more than 40 European social
NGOs, urges the European Union's political leaders to put social concerns at the
heart of its political agenda. The plan comes on the eve of the fiftieth
anniversary of the European Union (EU) and ahead of the Berlin declaration aimed
at solving the Constitutional deadlock.
In an open letter, the Social Platform proposes three practical actions:
First, the EU needs to establish a “social policy scoreboard”. This would
help to assess how Member States are implementing EU social legislation and how
far they have delivered on agreed key targets. Anne-Sophie Parent, president of
the Social Platform, comments: “Politicians have to take more seriously the
political commitments they make at EU level and a scoreboard would help us to
monitor this”.
The second action proposed is to mainstream social policy concerns throughout
the EU’s policy-making - and to give precedence to social objectives when they
are in conflict with competition or internal market objectives. “The EU Treaties
clearly put social and economic objectives on an equal footing, but the practice
so far has been to subordinate social policies to the internal market” says
Parent. ‘We need to redress this balance.”
Thirdly, in a new treaty, the EU should adopt strategic goals that respond to
the concerns of all people in Europe. Globalisation, demographic change,
increased poverty and global warming call for a shift of EU’s political
priorities: from growth and jobs to a truly social and sustainable development
strategy.
Source: Social Platform Files back |
