After its debate on the preparations for the European Council of Barcelona on 15 and 16 March, during its plenary session of 27 and 28 February in Brussels (see EUROPE of 1 March, p.13), the European Parliament adopted resolutions in which it sets out what it expects to come out of the third spring summit, after those of Lisbon and Gothenburg. The resolutions in question are by its rapporteur on the Lisbon process, German Social Democrat Udo Bullmann (adopted by 322 to 190 with 20 abstentions), and the resolution on sustainable development strategy presented by the Chair of the Committee on the Environment, British Conservative Caroline Jackson (the text of this resolution was considerably amended in plenary). These two Parliament resolutions are addressed to the EU Heads of State and Government. EUROPE/Documents publishes them in their entirety.
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EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION ON THE STRATEGY FOR FULL EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL INCLUSION IN THE RUN-UP TO THE SPRING 2002 SUMMIT IN BARCELONA: LISBON PROCESS AND THE WAY TO FOLLOW
The European Parliament,
- having regard to the Commission communication to the Spring European Council in Barcelona on the Lisbon Strategy - Making change happen (COM(2002) 14),
- having regard to the Commission communication on structural indicators (COM(2000) 594),
- having regard to the conclusions of the Lisbon European Council of 23 and 24 March 2000, of the Nice European Council of 7, 8 and 9 December 2000, of the Stockholm European Council of 23 and 24 March 2001 and of the Göteborg European Council of 15 and 16 June 2001,
- having regard to the declarations by the Heads of State or Government and the President of the Commission in Ghent on 19 October 2001,
- having regard to the Commission communication on the European social policy agenda (COM(2000) 379),
- having regard to Rule 163 of its Rules of Procedure,
- having regard to the report of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (A5-0030/2002),
A. whereas the Lisbon European Council agreed on the strategic goal of transforming the European Union into the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world with the equivalent goals of sustainable growth, full employment, reduced poverty and greater social cohesion,
B. whereas, according to the conclusions of the Stockholm European Council, 'the synthesis report, including the scoreboard on the follow-up of the Social Agenda, will be made available by the end of January at the latest and will constitute the principal basis for the Council's preparatory work,
C. whereas the European Council in Stockholm and especially the European Council in Göteborg, with the introduction of environmental goals, added a third dimension to the process and adopted a long-term strategy for sustainable development in which economic growth, social cohesion and environmental protection should be mutually supportive,
D. whereas the serious worldwide downward economic trend requires even stronger efforts to implement the Lisbon recommendations in full in order to achieve set targets, thus making the Barcelona summit the real touchstone for shaping a functioning market with effective mechanisms of policy-making and a stable social dimension,
E. whereas the recent Ghent European Council of 19 October 2001 restated the Union's commitment to the Lisbon strategy and requested the Council to accelerate the work on its implementation,
'More Europe' - mobilising resources for change
1. Welcomes the introduction of the euro coins and notes, which embodies the achievement of irreversible European integration and provides further support for the development of the European economy; notes the enormous potential the euro offers to stimulate investment and to stabilise macroeconomic conditions, but that work will need to be done by Member States to unlock that potential; notes that the Union stands on firm economic foundations and that the macroeconomic stability ushered in with the introduction of the euro has played a key role in sheltering Europe's economy from the worst of the global recession, as reflected primarily in the fact that inflation has been kept reasonably under control, interests rates have remained low, public expenditure has been restructured and the labour markets have developed well;
2. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to uphold the commitments made in the Stability and Growth Pact and thus facilitate the monetary authority's task of maintaining price stability and low interest rates, as a key factor in encouraging investment;
3. Reaffirms the relevance of the global strategy established in Lisbon in 2000; finds that the new international situation that has emerged since the Lisbon goals were set, makes them even more important; sees therefore the need for speeding up the implementation of the Lisbon agenda and for closer coordination of EU and Member States' economic, employment and structural policies, particularly a better coordination of strategies and time-tables of the main procedures (Broad Economic Policy Guidelines, Luxembourg, Cardiff and Cologne process), to enable the annual Spring European Council to provide the most effective policy guidance, and so to increase the capacity for sustainable growth and employment;
4. Requests that the Lisbon policy mix of mutually supportive economic reform, full employment, social cohesion and sustainable development should be reinforced through concrete measures which increase the potential for growth and job creation; calls for a coherent package of initiatives in Barcelona to illustrate Europe's ability to act in a short-term perspective while remaining committed to the objectives of Lisbon, as complemented in Stockholm and Göteborg; calls for better recognition of the need to foster entrepreneurship and to take the necessary steps to encourage SMEs, already the largest employers in the EU, to employ more people;
5. Recalls the core idea of the Lisbon approach that 'people are Europe's main asset and should be the focal point of the Union's policies'; stresses the urgent need to enhance the policies of investing in people in all areas; demands steps to maximise human resources in an inclusive society as a decisive means of boosting productivity and economic growth; expects the Barcelona summit to deliver visible results, to restore trust among European citizens and to strengthen their abilities, knowledge base, working skills, potential consumption and entrepreneurial capacities; recognises that the growing tide of unemployment in many Member States will not reverse itself automatically, but will require decisive action and real change;
6. Welcomes the integration of a sustainable development strategy in the Lisbon process and of a set of structural indicators in the Synthesis report; stresses the importance of a commitment to a long-term vision of the relationships between the economy, employment, social questions and the environment and recognises that pursuing environmental objectives has a dynamic impact on a systematic process of growth, development and social well-being as in the energy or transport sector; indicators in the field of economic development should take into account the environmental impact of economic policies, and the way environmental policies impact on economic developments; the "environmental mainstreaming" approach must be further developed;
Towards an inclusive European society: enabling people to participate and take the initiative
7. Recalls the objectives set of the Lisbon and Stockholm European Councils of a substantial increase in the employment rate, and in particular the goal of an employment rate of 70% overall, with a rate of 50% in the 55-64 age bracket and of more than 60% for female employment by 2010; this objective should not be watered down in spite of the current recession; notes that it is fairly unlikely that this objective will be met if the Member States' policies remain unchanged in view of the currently low level of economic growth; calls therefore for an acceleration of the Treaty-based employment strategy, especially with regard to women and older workers; calls on the European Council and the Member States to set similar goals for reducing youth unemployment and national employment objectives and on the Commission to step up the pressure on the Member State governments;
8. Notes that the European social model is widely seen as an essential basis for rendering Europe acceptable to its citizens; recognises the need however to modernise this policy as confirmed at the Lisbon European Council, without undermining the fundamental principle of social cohesion;
9. Welcomes the progress made by increasing the participation of unemployed people in active labour market measures to at least 20% in nearly all Member States; nonetheless calls for ambitious new intermediate targets to raise that percentage significantly, with reference to the results achieved by three best-performing Member States;
10. Calls for a new strategy to improve the quality of employment by investing in health and safety at work, equal opportunities and qualifications, measures to combat illiteracy and to provide a guarantee of training and retraining for young people, in order to provide for a sustainable working life which allows for choice and diversity and permits switching between training and employment; regrets that according to the respective structural indicators little progress has been made to turn lifelong learning into a daily reality; insists that employees should be given the right to vocational training and life-long learning; states that education systems must become more responsive to the needs of people and the labour markets and therefore calls for more investment and joint actions to improve decisively the knowledge base (especially in the fields of training, lifelong learning, education, innovation and research); primary schools throughout Europe must be supplied with computers and Internet access as quickly as possible; calls for investment in the quality of training to be given priority and for early and targeted measures to train up workers in the IT field;
11. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure that the revision of the new Basel Capital Accord and the new EU capital adequacy framework take into account the structural characteristics of European enterprises, thus avoiding additional strains for European business, in particular SMEs; stresses that new capital adequacy rules must not result in a general increase of the cost of loans as this would jeopardise the competitiveness of the European economy in the long run;
12. Emphasises that a higher employment rate on the way to full employment is best attained by a combination of improved labour productivity and more flexible general working time;
13. Stresses the crucial role of affordable, good quality child care in the Member States, insists on its requests to set EU-wide targets, indicators and benchmarks in this field, and therefore fully supports the Commission's proposals for specific targets to be reached by 2010;
14. In order to achieve full employment, measures must be adopted in the Member States to create not only more but better jobs; stresses that job-creation measures are not an end in themselves but must lead to real employment; demands more progress in developing innovative and flexible strategies which enable people to decide on their appropriate form of participation in the labour market; asks for more initiatives which encourage new working arrangements such as part-time work and teleworking in a way which ensures balance between flexibility and security and on a voluntary basis a more gradual exit of older people from the labour market, as well as strategies to drastically reduce compulsory early retirements schemes; insists in this respect on the need for specific policies for older workers in terms of ad-hoc training and life-long learning, working conditions, and a high level of social protection; also insists on the need to promote a good working environment for all, including equal opportunities for people with disabilities and equality between men and women;
15. Calls on the Member States to make employment attractive from a worker's point of view
(a) by ensuring that the differential between sustainable social security benefits and pay is sufficient to ensure that unemployed people do not become trapped in unemployment, but can access the labour market at an appropriate level of income, and
(b) by reducing taxation burdens on low incomes;
16. Calls on the Member States to make employment attractive from an employer's point of view
(a) by reducing labour costs (taxation and social security contributions) so that it becomes less expensive to create jobs,
(b) by creating an environment which is favourable in all respects to promoting employment in labour-intensive services;
17. Proposes that the Council, at its meeting this Spring, adopt measures relating to paragraphs 15 and 16, by carrying out comparative studies on best practice and innovative policies;
18. Recalls that industrial peace has contributed significantly to increasing European productivity, and that clear strategies are thus needed to guarantee the appropriateness of pension systems, health systems and systems for the care of elderly people while at the same time preserving the sustainability of public finances and solidarity between the generations;
19. Stresses that a thorough evaluation of the national action plans against poverty and social exclusion, presented for the first time in June 2001, is a vital component of the integrated Lisbon strategy drawn up by the Social Agenda; strongly supports, as requested in the past, a clear target on poverty; calls on the Spring Summit to deliver a specific target for 2010 and to agree on a European definition of poverty; calls on the Member States and the EU institutions to redouble their efforts and make full use of the open method of coordination, to reach this target by tackling in particular all aspects of this multidimensional problem using the indicators adopted in Laeken; calls on the Commission and the Member States to devise ways of ensuring the participation of the socially excluded and the poor in the formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the national action plans against poverty and social exclusion;
20. Expects the Commission and the Member States to make full use of all instruments indicated in the Social Agenda for its implementation and stresses the need for an annual follow-up with a scoreboard; in particular, expects the Commission to propose legislative instruments should negotiations between European social partners fail;
21. Notes that demographic change will be a major challenge for the European Union in the decades to come, and that it is therefore important to take measures to achieve a gradual and balanced reform in the current pension systems, such as by making jobs more attractive for the elderly and removing obstacles in order to promote the integration of older people willing and able to work; strongly supports an open method of coordination and the drafting of the necessary legal framework; regards it as essential to safeguard sustainable and universal pension schemes, based on the concept of solidarity and social cohesion, and to consolidate public debt;
22. Welcomes in this respect the recent Commission communication on health care and care for the elderly, which focused on common social challenges in this field and the need to redouble efforts to support good practice and maintain a sustainable and high quality health care system in the EU;
23. Welcomes the Commission's more holistic and proactive approach to industrial change; asks the Commission to take greater account of the employment and social implications of all EU policies, through the establishment at Community level of a set of principles for action to support good business practice when restructuring; this will avoid dismissals of the kind experienced in the last few months, which have been deliberately and incorrectly blamed on the 'effects of the terrorist attacks in the USA'; also calls on the Commission, the Council and the Member States to increase and coordinate their efforts in sectors heavily hit by the events of 11 September, in particular tourism, aviation and the insurance sector;
24. Calls on the Commission to produce, at an early date, a systematic comparative assessment of the effects of liberalisation of public services on employment, territorial cohesion and the quality of services; points to the fact that services of general interest, particularly those which manage scarce resources or natural monopolies, have a major role to play in achieving sustainable development; encourages the Commission, on the basis of the Council conclusions presented at the Laeken European Council, to draw up a proposal for a framework directive, based on Article 95 of the EC Treaty, on services of general interest;
25. Calls, in the case of mergers, for in-house training and further training measures to be agreed between the social partners in the run-up to such restructuring measures, so as to improve the reintegration into working life of the employees who lose their jobs; supports the initiative taken by some firms seeking to promote social responsibility in business;
26. Believes that the High Level Task Force on skills and mobility failed to deliver sufficiently innovative proposals for measures on worker mobility; recalls that the 1997 action plan was only partially implemented, and that a global revision of Council Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 1 is an urgent priority; supports the Commission in its efforts to present an action plan for the creation and opening up of new European employment markets with specific proposals for a uniform, more transparent and flexible system for the recognition of occupational qualifications and study periods, and for the transferability of supplementary pensions; urges the immediate removal of barriers to mobility with a new basic framework of labour rights and social security for workers moving within the Community, so as to formulate common objectives, definitions and minimum standards;
The way to sustainable growth in a competitive environment
27. Urgently demands further progress to achieve a more dynamic, integrated and flexible internal market combining flexibility and security and is concerned about the gap in delivering the right regulatory framework; supports the Commission´s view that structural reforms must focus on increasing competition, interconnection and investment, and the roll out of broadband communication networks; stresses that further progress must be made towards the construction of a single market in transport, electricity, gas, telecommunications and financial services, combining liberalisation and market regulation so as to take account of social and regional cohesion and sustainable development; in this context it is urgent to proceed on the privatisation of the state monopolies which have obstructed the consolidation of a true internal market in some of these strategic sectors;
28. Welcomes the Commission's proposal to launch a framework directive on services of general interest; stresses the importance of the contribution of services of general interest to economic growth and social cohesion; insists that the completion of the single market has to be accompanied by a clear and secure framework which guarantees broad and open access to services to the benefit of all citizens;
29. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to adopt specific policies and measures to promote economic and social cohesion in regions whose development is lagging behind or regions with areas facing structural difficulties, aimed at increasing investments in infrastructure, in supporting SMEs, research and development, training and lifelong learning, and at reducing non-wage labour costs;
30. Recalls the need, if the potential of the internal market is to be exploited to the full, to create a smoothly functioning cross-border market, which should be supported by an appropriate infrastructure capacity, especially in the border regions;
31. Urges European tax coordination where it is necessary to meet the Treaty objectives, where it constitutes an important element of a functioning single market and reduces harmful tax competition between Member States and fraud; calls on the Commission and the Council to foster the process of VAT convergence (to implement the country-of-origin principle) and of taxes on business income (to remove the distortions that obstruct the proper functioning of the internal market);.
32. Regards environmental conservation and protection as key aspects of the sustainable development sought by the European Union; to that end tax incentives should be offered to encourage the rational use of scarce natural resources and support should be given in particular to clean technologies and renewable sources of energy; calls for the establishment of indicators which will evaluate the mutual impact;
33. Regrets that still not enough steps have been taken to eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy for SMEs, and looks to the Member States for early and decisive action to simplify the regulatory environment, including the performance of public administration;
34. Urges the Member States to support the use of simplified standard forms and the intensive use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in dealings between undertakings and public administrations so as to streamline the procedures for setting up, registering and publicising the establishment of undertakings at the start-up stage and to guard against malpractice, in keeping with the European Charter for SMEs;
35. Is concerned about the EU-investment rate lacking behind that of its main competitors; calls therefore for a decisive effort to stimulate public and private investments especially in areas of strategic relevance (e.g. education and human resources, information society, R&D, technology, SMEs, transport and environment); calls on the European Council to increase the budgetary appropriations devoted to this objective and to encourage greater private-sector involvement in R&D activities by appropriate means, especially credits on income taxes;
36. Points out that in recent months job creation has come to a halt for the first time since the Luxembourg process was launched; attention therefore should be focused on new working arrangements such as part-time work and teleworking, and on the possibility of easing the tax burden on lower paid jobs; furthermore the labour market should favour worker mobility to ensure a higher take-up of jobs in the EU, thus creating favourable conditions for improved competitiveness and the full use of working capacity within more open European labour markets;
37. Finds that comparisons of "best practice" between countries can be useful in the effort to increase European dynamism, but only in so far as countries are prepared to implement the lessons that can be learned and impose a new balance between flexibility and appropriate regulation where necessary;
38. Welcomes the contribution made by the European Union at the Doha Conference and the programme of work adopted and views it as significant in order to relaunch the liberalisation of world trade as a catalyst for international growth in conjunction with regulatory and sustainable development objectives, provided that the principles of free and fair trade will be properly implemented in accordance with the statutes of the WTO and the former GATT regime;
Reinforcing the Lisbon process through coordination and democratisation
39. Considers that the full implementation of the Lisbon strategy must guarantee greater openness with the participation of local and regional authorities and the two sides of industry as well as a broad public debate at national level so that there can be a real exchange of best practice;
40. Calls on the Commission and the Council to negotiate an interinstitutional agreement with the European Parliament for its full involvement in the open coordination method, which will give greater democratic legitimacy to this procedure, and to ensure that the follow-up to the Lisbon strategy is not carried out on a purely intergovernmental basis, and that the open coordination method does not lead to camouflaged parallel legislation in contravention of the legislative procedures laid down in the EC Treaty; calls for the adoption of arrangements defining the extent to which the European Parliament can participate without constraints in the work of preparing and continuing the annual spring meetings of the European Council; requests, in particular, that the Commission's report summarising progress be communicated to Parliament by the end of January at the latest to enable the latter to express its opinion in an adequate manner;
41. Highlights the need for the process under way to enjoy greater democratic legitimacy; calls for the means to be found of involving the European Parliament fully in the work to prepare and monitor the process in the run-up to the spring 2002 European Council and calls on the European Council to provide for the necessary amendments to the EC Treaty (Article 99(2)) during the next IGC; insists on being involved in the implementation of decisions through a form of codecision in the context of the broad economic policy guidelines, its implementation and monitoring, in so far as these are not contained in the guidelines; in order to guarantee the effectiveness of this control, the Commission will deliver to the EP, every six months, a report listing the different measures to be adopted, and an analysis of the state of play as regards implementation;
42. Considers that social dialogue must be fostered and strengthened as a key factor in meeting the social and labour market policy challenges facing Europe, but also as a key factor in a more pro-active macro-economic dialogue to develop a positive interaction between economic, social and employment policies; therefore expects that the social partners to be involved on a structural basis in the preparation of the annual Spring summits and that the relevant NGOs will also be involved in these preparations, in particular at the annual meeting held before them; supports therefore the replacement of the Standing Committee on Employment by a tripartite concertation committee for growth and employment, as asked for by the social partners in their joint contribution to the Laeken European Council; also expects the Commission to support employees and their representatives so that they have access to qualified experts;
43. Welcomes the first steps in cooperation with the candidate countries, and calls for their full participation in the open method of coordination from now on as an indispensable element in the complete and comprehensive implementation of the Lisbon strategy;
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44. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, Commission and the parliaments of the Member States.
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EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION ON THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY FOR THE BARCELONA SUMMIT
The European Parliament,
- having regard to the decisions of the Göteborg European Council on promoting a sustainable development strategy in the Union, and in particular to revise it annually at its spring meetings,
- having regard to its resolution of 31 May 2001 on environment policy and sustainable development: preparing for the Gothenburg European Council 1 ,
- having regard to the recently published synthesis report by the Commission and to its resolutions in preparation for and responding to the Göteborg Summit,
- having regard to Oral Questions B5-0006/2002 and B5-0007/2002 by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy pursuant to Rule 42 of the Rules of Procedure and having regard to the statements by the Commission and Council,
A. whereas the Göteborg European Council established a proper EU strategy for sustainable development by adding an environmental dimension to the existing Lisbon process of annual assessment of sustainable economic growth and social cohesion,
B. whereas a strong environmental dimension is necessary within the sustainable development strategy to fulfil the requirements of Article 6 of the EC Treaty,
C. whereas at the Laeken European Council in December 2001 six initial environmental indicators were adopted to supplement the already established social and economic structural indicators,
D. whereas the annual EU assessment of sustainable development will require a regular and structured annual process of review within the Parliament,
E. whereas the forthcoming Rio +10 conference in Johannesburg represents a vital opportunity to further extend sustainable development principles at worldwide level;
F. whereas the agenda and objectives for this conference will have to be carefully examined within the European Parliament, in conjunction with the other EU institutions and with other parliaments, whereas compliance with Community legislation and the appropriate transposition thereof are an essential part of the EU's sustainable development strategy, and whereas the Barcelona European Council provides a further opportunity for calling on the Member States to make a greater effort in this area,
The preparations for Barcelona: the need for balance between environmental, economic and social indicators
1. Welcomes the fact that the Barcelona European Council represents the first in an annual series of assessments of EU progress towards sustainable development, integrating a number of pre-existing processes such as the Cardiff, Luxembourg, Cologne and Lisbon processes and leading to a more coordinated overall EU approach;
2. Calls for a review of the Cardiff environmental integration strategy at the Barcelona European Council in order to strengthen its implementation and provide a major input into the Sustainable Development Strategy, by agreeing timetables for action, medium-term objectives and clear targets, with appropriate follow-up actions to identify the extra resources needed to implement these strategies;
3. Believes that the Barcelona European Council should implement the Göteborg conclusions by agreeing that the review of the Common Fisheries Policy should address the overall fishing pressure by adapting EU fishing effort to the level of available resources;
4. Believes that the environmental pillar of sustainable development should be considered of equal importance to the economic and social pillars; stresses therefore the importance of a commitment to the 'environmental mainstreaming' approach and its further development; with a view to this, there is a need to develop evaluation tools and indicators and convergence criteria in all sectors related to sustainable development in order that there can be a proper balance between the economic, social and environmental dimensions of the sustainable development strategy; moreover, specific and measurable targets for reversing unsustainable trends should be established;
5. Believes that the environmental indicators developed by the Commission and included in the list of structural indicators for the first time are a good basis for future assessments of sustainable development, provided that the number of indicators used for assessing the environmental aspect of sustainable development (in particular, those relating to biodiversity) is increased; the European Council should call on the Commission to set aside the necessary resources and promote work with biodiversity indicators so that these can be included in the summary report for the summit in 2003;
6. Believes that in order to comply with the Göteborg conclusions regarding natural resource use, it is vital to break the link between economic growth and resource use, and therefore that an indicator should be added to evaluate resource consumption (e.g. total material requirement) flows, covering internal and external use of resources by the EU;
7. Calls upon the Commission to allocate sufficient resources not just to the development of all relevant indicators but also to the assessment of the availability and comparability of all necessary data;
8. Further considers that the use of indicators should be linked, wherever feasible, to clear targets and long-term timetables for the implementation of priority objectives, and should also be properly coordinated with the 6 th Environmental Action Programme which has been finally adopted;
9. Points out that biotechnology, if applied prudently, can be a contribution to sustainable development and welcomes, therefore, the biotechnology action plan presented by the Commission for the Barcelona European Council; regrets, however, that the Commission cconsiders the reservations of a lot of citizens about GMOs and specific forms of stem cell research mainly as a lack of acceptance; stresses, therefore, that the request for labelling and traceability of GMOs and for priority for the work with adult stem cells, to which the European Parliament has drawn attention on several occasions, is legitimate;
10. Considers that the European Council should call on the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament to adopt rules for compensation liability in environmental matters, including pollution with GMOs;
11. Emphasises the importance of environmental technology as a means of ensuring that resources and energy are used efficiently in the promotion of growth and employment within the EU and welcomes the Commission's preparation of a report on this subject;
12. Is deeply concerned about the precedent set by proposals for the development of unsustainable water management schemes across Europe, and calls on the Commission for these reasons not to provide any EU funding for these water transfer projects;
Future annual assessments of sustainable development
13. Regrets that the European Parliament was only able to react on an ad hoc basis to the preparations for the Barcelona European Council; calls therefore on the Commission and the Council to negotiate an interinstitutional agreement with the European Parliament for its full involvement in the sustainable development strategy, which will give greater democratic legitimacy to this procedure, and to ensure that the follow-up to the Lisbon strategy, taking full account of the conclusions of the Göteborg Council, is not carried out on a purely intergovernmental basis; requests, in particular, that the Commission's report summarising progress be communicated to Parliament in good time to enable the latter to express its opinion in the form of an obligatory consultation, including the involvement of all committees concerned in an adequate manner;
14. Calls, in this context, for:
- an annual European Parliament debate on progress towards the Lisbon strategy and the sustainable development strategy following the Göteborg European Council at a part-session in February, in time for the Council and European Council's assessment in March,
- involvement of all European Parliament committees concerned, notably its Environment, Employment and Economic Affairs Committees, but also those on Agriculture, Fisheries, Industry, Transport, Culture and Development, by means of regular assessments of progress towards sustainable development in their own areas, and by annual appointment of rapporteurs or 'monitors';
15. Considers that the European Council should call on the Commission to promote work towards a method for the sustainability analysis of all legislative proposals; sustainability assessments should comprise the long-term economic, social and environmental advantages and costs of intervention or non-intervention both within and outside the EU;
16. Considers that the Council and the Commission also need to reconsider their working methods with regard to the follow-up to the Lisbon strategy and the Göteborg sustainable development strategy to ensure both better coordination and leadership on this horizontal set of issues; believes, in this context, that the Environment Council should play an enhanced role in future annual assessments, and recalls its proposal that an Environment Policy Committee be established to complement the existing Economic Policy Committee;
17. Stresses that it must be possible for the citizens of the EU to be involved in the combined effort which is required if the challenge of sustainable development is to be met and calls, therefore, on the Commission to make public the valuable information provided by the indicators and to emphasise the shared responsibility of society as a whole regarding improvements to those indicators;
18. Calls on the European Council to insist that enlargement negotiations on agriculture fully respect the EU's objectives for sustainable development, including the principle of integrating environmental considerations into sectorial policies;
19. Considers that, if the Commission has not submitted a proposal for new chemicals legislation before the Barcelona European Council, the European Council should call for the Commission to speed up its work with a view to complying with the deadline for the EU strategy;
Preparations for the Rio +10 conference in Johannesburg from 26 August - 4 September 2002
20. Emphasises the vital significance of the forthcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development, but expresses its concern that the large number of preparatory meetings at UN level have not yet led to a clearly focused agenda or specific objectives for the conference;
21. Welcomes the Communication from the Commission published on 13 February 2002 "Towards a Global Partnership for Sustainable Development" on the EU's contribution towards the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) addressed, inter alia, to Parliament, and regrets that due to the late publication of this document there will be insufficient time for Parliament to give its considered response before the forthcoming March Environment Council adopts its conclusions for transmission to the Barcelona European Council meeting on 15-16 March 2002; calls therefore on the Council to consider this matter further at the Seville European Council in June 2002 to allow for full consultation at EU level and for a report from the final meeting of UN Preparatory Committee IV in Jakarta;
22. Calls for the fullest possible preparations within the EU institutions and undertakes to hold a full debate on this subject at the part-session of June or July 2002;
23. Expects the forthcoming Commission communication on the external sustainable development strategy, as called for at the Göteborg European Council, to be open for full consultation at EU level and, in its final form, to be a formal commitment from the EU to the WSSD;
24. Calls for one EU priority at Johannesburg to be to secure access of the rural poor to natural resources and to enhance their capacity to manage those resources sustainably, and also to propose that resource conservation activities be financially rewarded on the basis of the benefits accruing to the EU and other developed countries;
25. Is critical of the fact that the lack of time permitted to Parliament reflects badly on the process of inclusiveness and democracy which should characterise the European Union's approach to the WSSD;
26. Believes that the preparations for this conference should not just involve civil servants but should also have significant parliamentary input; supports the idea, therefore, of a parliamentary conference on sustainable development and on the preparations for the Johannesburg conference, to be held under the auspices of the European Parliament and of the Council of Europe in late spring or early summer 2002 and with the widest possible parliamentary involvement;
27. Calls on the EU governments and institutions to make an effort to encourage the involvement of European civil society in the debate concerning the issues to be dealt with in Johannesburg, so as to ensure that civil society is more widely involved in the task of sustainable development and in the implementation of the agreements reached;
28. Considers that the WSSD represents an unrepeatable opportunity for world leaders to set the sustainability agenda for the next 10 years with a programme of work which would build on the agreements generated at the Earth Summit in Rio; regrets therefore that certain countries appear reluctant to commit themselves to an ambitious agenda, thus permitting only slow progress in the preparatory committees so far;
29. Wishes to see a re-balancing of the international agenda to reflect the priority which must be given to poverty alleviation and equitable access to and use of natural resources; and calls for a restructuring of economic policies to reflect these priorities;
30. Wishes, therefore, to see new impetus given to creating a legal framework for global environmental governance and corporate social responsibility as well as new international initiatives on such issues as food and water security, protection of public services, renewable sources of energy and promoting sustainable patterns of consumption and production;
31. Considers, in view of the importance of the Johannesburg conference and the need for broad representation of political groups and committees concerned, that a large European Parliament contingent of up to 25 Members should be authorised to attend the conference as part of the EU delegation;
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32. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.
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