Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 13 March 2019 - Strasbourg

European Semester for economic policy coordination: Annual Growth Survey 2019 - European Semester for economic policy coordination: employment and social aspects in the Annual Growth Survey 2019 (debate)

  Marian Harkin, Rapporteur. – Madam President, first of all, can I thank the shadow rapporteurs for their good cooperation, which I believe has led to a balanced report. There are a few amendments submitted and I think that, with the exception of one, I can support all of them. They don’t significantly change the content or the tone of the report, but they do improve it.

So, first of all, can I say how important it is for the Employment Committee to have its own separate report on the Annual Growth Survey, because we have a different perspective to that of the Economic Committee. They are complementary, but they have a different emphasis, and this report, as well as the previous two reports from the Employment Committee, I believe contribute to rebalancing the importance of the social and economic issues. The economy must work for society. It must contribute to social cohesion, social inclusion and decent jobs. It must be the springboard from which individuals and families can plan their future with confidence. Many of the headline figures for the EU are positive, and I want to list some of them because they are important: the EU economy continues to expand, providing a record number of jobs for people; we are making progress on the social scoreboard; household incomes continue to rise in most Member States; the share of people at risk of poverty and social exclusion decreased up to 2017; and there are more women in the workforce.

All of this is positive, yet there are very significant challenges that persist. For me, one of the major challenges is that household incomes have grown more slowly than GDP, from something like 10.9% to 15.5% over a period of 12 years. This clearly indicates to me that much of our growth is not fully inclusive. This is a key issue for citizens and for the EU as a whole and I believe it will play a role in ensuring the cohesion, and therefore the future, of the EU.

Youth unemployment averages at 18.6% across the EU, which is unacceptably high. While the youth guarantee has certainly helped, the issue as regards resources is that it is woefully underfunded. Precarious work is a huge challenge, given that workers are unable to enforce their rights, with no social security and work in security as a major issue. That’s one of the reasons why I will be supporting the amendment calling for the banning of zero hour contracts. We have challenges around increasing life expectancy, with 80% of the care in the EU being provided by informal family carers, 75% of whom are women. Yes, we have our Directive on Work-Life Balance, but unfortunately on the aspect of carers’ leave, that part of the Directive is weak and allows Member States to choose not to make a real choice for carers.

We have stated clearly in the resolution that the EU’s social goals and commitments are just as important as its economic goals and are not just a means of guaranteeing economic growth, but must be a specific target in themselves.

This perspective underpins our approach to all the proposals in this report on the Annual Growth Survey. This report sends a strong message to citizens that we in the Parliament recognise the essential need to ensure that our citizens can look to the future with confidence. And once again, thank you to all who have contributed to this report.