Brussels, 19/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - On the International Day of Combating Poverty (17 October), the European Parliament's Employment and Social Affairs Committee held an extraordinary meeting, chaired by Michel Rocard, to present the European Commission's "Declaration on the National Action Plans (NAPs) for Social Inclusion". The Belgian Presidency of the EU was represented by Ministers Johan Vande Lanotte (Social Integration) and Frank Vandenbroucke (Social Affairs and Pensions) and the Commission by Anna Diamantopoulou. Representatives of civil society also participated (NGOs, trade unions and anti-poverty networks).
Opening the meeting, Michel Rocard explained that more than 65 million people in the EU (18% of the population) live below the poverty line. The Lisbon Summit gave itself the objective of eradicating poverty by 2010 so there is plenty of work left to be done. He welcomed the fact that the Belgian Presidency of the EU would be "tackling exclusion problems at the Laeken Summit" and would be preparing indicators on combating poverty in time for the Summit, while stressing the importance of pursuing the Lisbon strategy in a Europe that is in economic recession that began with the tragic events of 11 September. The President of the EP Committee saw the true challenge as being incorporating social inclusion policies into all the EU's policies. In order to combat exclusion, it needs to be better understood. The MEP asserted that they needed qualitative indicators to tackle multi-faceted social exclusion and the indicators need to be comparable, with Eurostat being given a bigger budget. We have to mobilise all the players concerned, he added, since the battle will only be won with public opinion which explains the importance of making full use of parliaments.
Johan Vande Lanotte said that combating poverty had to be a thread running through all EU policies. Poverty was not just financial, but also included the right to housing and health. A preventative policy was needed here, and he added that open coordination and the exchange of experience were required. Frank Vandenbroucke also felt that social inclusion had to be promoted in the EU's general strategy using the open coordination method, meaning that common objectives were needed at EU level, followed by national action plans and finally a report and results put together in a comparable and transparent framework.
Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou said that the United Nations Day of Combating Poverty had been celebrated for the past five years and provided an excellent opportunity to reflect and assess what is being done at home in Europe. She said that absolute poverty existed in various countries in the world where more than 10 million children die every year from treatable diseases, more than 1 billion people live on less than one euro a day and millions of women are deprived of their basic rights. Ms Diamantopoulou appealed for the military alliance and repression of terrorism created by the 11 September events, without precedent in our history, to be extended to other issues such as the fight against exclusion and poverty in the world, which are also causes of terrorism. She added that relative poverty exists in Europe: 65 million people live on less than 60% of the national average income. Poverty has an impact on society in general, which has to pay part of the social costs of the failure that is poverty. Poverty also has a feminine face since 80% of the world's poor are women. For Ms Diamantopoulou, despite the progress made by the EU in a short space of time (from the Nice Summit to the definition of common objectives when the NAPs were handed in in June 2001 and the presentation of indicators at the Laeken Summit in December), it was necessary to strengthen policies with short and long-term strategies in order for problems to effectively disappear. The Commissioner also drew attention to illiteracy, affecting 15% of the adult population, preventing people from accessing employment and therefore putting a brake on their future. The Commissioner signalled that the Commission was carrying out research into the cost of not having a social policy and would be issuing a Communication on local employment in 2002.
The President of the Social Protection Committee, Raoul Briet, presented the Stanton Report, including a series of indicators, 8 of which on the financial and monetary aspect, 4 on employment, 2 on access to training and 2 on health. Once the Social Protection Committee has endorsed the report on Thursday, it will be transmitted to the 3 December Social Council and then to the Laeken Summit. He concluded that what they wanted was to amass agreements and give a new impulse so that work could continue in 2002, and therefore work out how to institutionalise the participation of the excluded themselves in setting up poverty indicators.
During the debate, Ilda Figueiredo (GUE/NGL, Portugal) and Marie-Françoise Wilkinson (Anti-Poverty Network, APN) insisted on the need to find new financial resources for poverty and quality employment, and to help countries in dire poverty and the countries applying for EU accession. Ms Wilkinson noted that more coordination was needed between the various committees (economic policy, employment, social protection) and that the associations representing the socially excluded and the poor should take part in the process to combat exclusion. Marie-Hélène Gillig (PES, France) called for a move towards guidelines, as in the case for employment, the open coordination method being, in her view, limited. Ioannis Koukiadis (PES, Greece) stressed the "quantitative and qualitative aspect of poverty that is sometimes imported into a region". Olivier Gérard (NGO Platform) said that NAPs must encourage the responsibility and actions of all citizens in the fight against poverty. Anne Van Lancker (PES, Belgium) considers the "quality of indicators must result in redistribution of wealth in Europe". Finally, the representative of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), Mr Lourdel, mainly insisted on the importance of involving ETUC in the process at every stage, among others through consultation by the social protection committee. He recalled that ETUC was involved in the approach to obtain quality employment for the excluded, this being to avoid the "working poor", and that it requested coherence between the European process of social inclusion and employment.