Members of the European Parliament Employment and Social Affairs Committee welcomed Vice-President Dubravka Šuica, responsible for Democracy and Demography, on Thursday 8 September for a first exchange of views on the ‘European Care Strategy’, presented on 6 September (see EUROPE 13016/7).
They welcomed the presentation of a package that aims to improve the situation of formal and informal carers and to recruit more staff, including through legal migration programmes, and called it a very “good step”, as committee chair Dragoș Pîslaru (Renew Europe, Romanian) put it. However, they also pointed to a certain lack of ambition and questioned the concrete implementation of these actions.
Responding to German MEP Dennis Radtke (EPP) on the concrete effects of the strategy, the Vice-President defended the use of two EU Council recommendations (on long-term care and on the Barcelona Targets), which will spur Member States to action. “There will also be a follow-up to these recommendations in the context of the ‘European Semester’” she replied. Member States have “no obligations”, but “can see that European action is useful”.
For Renew Europe MEP Véronique Trillet-Lenoir (French), it is essential to consider long-term health care “not as a cost, but as an investment”. In this sense, the strategy’s call to develop skills, digital tools, and to fight against gender inequalities (women being overrepresented in these activities) is a step in the right direction, she said.
But, “obviously, we could have considered a framework directive on care or a real status for carers; the strategy could have been more ambitious, but maybe it is not too late” was her reaction.
Mounir Satouri (Greens/EFA, French) said he was “happy” to see that the strategy calls for addressing labour shortages in these sectors. It is also “essential to value” these workers and to move towards better working conditions.
“We only regret that these are recommendations; we are asking for a directive for formal and informal carers with the same standards in the EU” he added.
The “Commission’s proposal therefore lacks ambition” and does not sufficiently address the problem of domestic and informal carers, he added. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)