Brussels, 12/12/2007 (Agence Europe) - Deeming the proposals for reform of the growth and jobs strategy presented by the European Commission on Tuesday to be “inadequate”, the Socialist group in the EP believes that heads of state and government meeting at the European summit on Friday “have a duty to go beyond the Commission's proposals and seek concrete solutions”.
Spokesman on this issue, German MEP Udo Bullmann said in a press release that he felt there was no new plan for growth and jobs, and no response to the new challenges to be faced. He wanted Commission President José Manuel Barroso's work programme to be “more daring”. He said: “The European Commission clearly understands the problems facing the Union. Unfortunately, it does not have the courage to come up with concrete proposals to overcome them”. He went on to say that, for the Socialist group, “progress towards social Europe is a priority. This requires increased efforts to reduce poverty, to increase the support given to young children, more technical training for workers and greater investment in education and training”. Belgian MEP Anne van Lancker said that the Lisbon strategy had helped create growth and jobs, “but not everyone had benefited. Poverty has increased in the European Union, which has an ever-increasing number of socially excluded and poorly paid workers”. Hungarian MEP Edith Herczog felt that what was required was “a full range of measures to alleviate these problems, not simply tinkering at the edges” of climate change, poverty, relocation of companies or the financial crisis. (G.B.)