To respond adequately to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament managed to include progressive policy proposals in a report on the Employment Guidelines that was adopted by the employment committee today.
Klara Dobrev, S&D spokesperson on the employment guidelines, said:
“Today, we adopted the Parliament’s position on the Employment Guidelines. To me, decent wages are crucial in this context. Any employment must ensure fair wages for workers to eliminate in-work poverty and provide a decent standard of living in all member states. Member states are called upon to respect and strengthen social partners and extend collective bargaining coverage. This is the basis of a democratic, inclusive and socially just recovery.
“The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employment made it necessary to substantially up-date the guidelines. To better reflect the changing realities of the unfolding crisis, we called for a revision of the guidelines no later than one year after adoption. We up-hold our call for full involvement of the Parliament in the Employment Guidelines.”
Agnes Jongerius, S&D spokesperson on employment, said:
“We will only get out of the COVID-19 crisis in a fair way by ensuring inequalities do not grow even more. It was shocking to see conservatives vote against measures needed to ensure such a fair recovery, like the gender equality index or banning EU support for companies based in tax havens. Especially in these tough times, member states need to be able to invest in their health care systems, and the EU's fiscal rules must not become an unsurmountable barrier for this. To make sure money ends up where people need it, and not in the pockets of some wealthy investors, multinationals registered in tax havens must be banned from receiving EU funds. Thanks to the support of other groups, we managed to get all these points into the report, even though the conservatives were trying hard to prevent us from achieving this.”
Note to the editor:
The Employment Guidelines present common priorities and targets for national employment policies in the fields of employment, education and social inclusion.
