Brussels, 31/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - On the initiative of the European Parliament, the City of Brussels and associations combating poverty, especially ADT Quart Monde, a stone of honour was laid down on 29 May on the EP's esplanade in Brussels (following several other cities, especially Paris, Strasbourg, Berlin, Rome, New York and Manila). Among the prominent people present were EP President Pat Cox, the Commissioner for Social Affairs, Anna Diamontopoulou, the Spanish Minister of Social Affairs, Concepcio Dancausa, and the Mayor of Brussels, Freddy Thielemans. The laying down of this stone allows for the inscription in stone of the commitments taken by the Union's Member States taken by the Fifteen, since the Lisbon Summit of March 2000 and which have been enacted by national action plans for social inclusion. The text which was deposited on 17 October 1987 on the Parvis des Liberté et Des Droits de l"Homme, in Paris, is inscribed in German, English, French and Dutch.
Martine Roure, President of the Intergroup ADT Quart Monde, welcomed this "great initiative" at a press conference given jointly with former EP President Jose Maria Gil-Robles. "This inauguration is a great opportunity to recall that the will to see dire poverty disappear is a democratic requirement for Europe", stressed Ms. Roure, sending out a cry of alarm to Member States to "take this still unfinished struggle very seriously". Recalling the significant advances, since the Lisbon and Nice Summits, in the struggle against poverty and social exclusion, Martine Roure nevertheless noted that the national action plans (NAPs) in the field were still far from the goal set in Lisbon of the total eradication of poverty in Europe in the ten years to come and regretted that, generally-speaking, these plans did not contain a real budget for implementing them. "It is important to start preparing the next NAPs that need drawing up by September 2003, involving NGOs, national parliaments and local and regional authorities, as well as the populations living in poverty. The EP must insist on this mobilisation, especially of national parliaments that have still not taken account of the national plan for social inclusion adopted in their own countries", commented Ms. Roure. Furthermore, she said, we must make progress in the right to live as a family and immigration, so that tens of thousands of people and families are not condemned to live clandestinely for ever, deprived of fundamental rights and threatened with being further pushed into poverty. Finally, Roure recalled the six points launched by the Intergroup ADT Quart Monde at the Convention on the future of Europe (she said he hoped that "much will be secured by that Convention, as it is made up to work with NGOs"): 1) eradication of poverty must be among the EU's priority objectives; 2) support for poverty eradication policies conducted by Central and Eastern European countries must be a major thrust in the enlargement process; 3) Member states must co-operate in this struggle; 4) implementation of fundamental rights for all needs promoting; 5) the system of systematic dialogue with NGOs needs strengthening; 6) representatives of populations in dire poverty must be included to the European Economic and Social Committee.