Brussels, 25/05/2010 (Agence Europe) - The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) Biennial Conference in Florence closed on Saturday 22 May 2010 with the conclusions of the discussions on “Education to combat social exclusion” being handed over to European Commission President José Manuel Barroso. “Europe was born out of a social cohesion project. It is more difficult for 27 countries, but, once again, we have to look at social policy. There has to be fiscal and social coordination, otherwise Europe could find itself in great difficulty,” said EESC President Mario Sepi, going on, “Education is important in addressing social exclusion. It can be used to break down the barriers that still exist”. The proposals put to Barroso are the fruit of debates, begun on Thursday 20 May, between representatives of the institutions and civil society. “Exclusion is a huge problem which has to be taken into account in every policy,” argued Enrico Rossi, President of the Region of Tuscany. “Human capital must be the driving force for change, to take society forward as a whole,” he added.
After stating the importance of education, from early years to life-long learning, participants at the Biennial stressed that compulsory education and informal and non-formal education had to complement one another better, and that better quality and fairer education had to be developed. “The education system has gone as far as it can. I'm not sure that it reduces inequalities,” said Martin Hirsch, former French High Commissioner for Youth and Solidarity against Poverty and current Head of the Civic Service Agency. “We have to seek excellence, but without giving up on integration,” argued Bibiana Aído Almagro, Spanish Equal Opportunities Minister. She said that “it is not just about reproducing elites. That would lead to an unfair, and also inefficient, society”. Conference participants, then, wanted more to be done to prevent young people dropping out of school, to tackle illiteracy and to combat discrimination against vulnerable groups, such as the Roma, the handicapped and travelling people. They also highlighted the need to make it easier for women to join the labour market, and to provide immigrants with better linguistic training to ease their access to the jobs market. The multicultural nature of European societies also had to be taken into account.
The proposals spoke, too, of the need to bring the skills of workers more into line with what employers were looking for. Vocational training must go hand-in-hand with basic knowledge and social skills. The conference called for everyone to be involved: institutions, member states, civil society families; the media and businesses, not just educational establishments. The proposals note that in times of crisis, education and training were essential investments. “Austerity has to be a bearable, socially acceptable austerity,” said Isabelle Durant, Vice-President of the European Parliament (Greens/EFA, Belgium). “The European project is a nonsense if we do not work on inclusion. It only has sense through the men and women who make it up,” she argued.
During his speech, Commission President José Manuel Barroso seemed very much of one mind with the proposals. “It is unacceptable that 80 million Europeans live below the poverty threshold. We have a fundamental role to play in tackling poverty. We have to give those in social difficulty the chance to live in dignity and to play an active part in society,” he said. He stressed that education was “the finest human civic and economic investment” and that it had to “play its full role in bringing fairness, preventing exclusion and helping social progress”.
He added that “creating a prosperous area which provides better social inclusion for its citizens in a difficult economic context and at a time of huge budgetary pressures” was one of the objectives the new EUROPE 2020 strategy will have to meet. He argued for continued investment in the social domain, but this investment had to target areas and measures “which have an added value in terms either of competitiveness, or social inclusion” and for making budgetary reform and social expenditure compatible. “Fair Europe is played out, in the main, in the education-employment-social inclusion triangle,” he said. Barroso argued that growth and competitiveness would increase if Europe banked on the knowledge economy. “It is through this intelligent growth that we will create more and better quality jobs,” he pointed out. He went on to say that “by encouraging creativity, mobility, the ability to adapt to change and entrepreneurship at all levels of education and training, we are engaging one of the key drivers of growth - innovation. This is essential for Europe's competitiveness”. He acknowledged, however, that employment alone cannot resolve all the problems associated with poverty, or child poverty or the poverty of very old retired people, and the number of poor workers is increasing.
The Commission president pointed out that the EU 2020 strategy contained a number of quantified targets: reducing school drop-out rates from 15% to 10%, and increasing the percentage of 30-34 year-olds who had completed a higher education course from 31% to 40% - objectives that had already been accepted by the EU Council of Ministers. The strategy also aimed to increase the employment rate among 20-64 year-olds from 69% to 75% and to reduce the number of Europeans living below the poverty line by 20 million. Furthermore, three of the strategy's seven initiatives were related to the education-employment-inclusion triangle, including a European anti-poverty platform. The EU 2020 strategy is due to be adopted by the European Council in June.
The conclusions of the Biennial could be transformed into a Green Paper or a legislative proposal from the Commission. Barroso undertook to examine the proposals with the relevant commissioners and to respond. (C-C.G./transl.rt)