35 Amendments of Heinz K. BECKER related to 2015/2330(INI)
Amendment 5 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 19 a (new)
Citation 19 a (new)
- – having regard to the 2014 Communication from the Commission on Effective and Accessible and Resilient, Health Systems (COM (2014) 215 final)
Amendment 7 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 19 b (new)
Citation 19 b (new)
- – having regard to the 2014 report of the Social Protection Committee entitled 'Adequate social protection for long-term care needs in an ageing society'
Amendment 9 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 19 c (new)
Citation 19 c (new)
- - Having regard to the Commission's Recommendation on the active inclusion of people excluded from the labour market (October 2008),
Amendment 11 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 19 d (new)
Citation 19 d (new)
- - Having regard to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,
Amendment 12 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 19 e (new)
Citation 19 e (new)
Amendment 54 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B a (new)
Recital B a (new)
B a. whereas only half of workers between 55 and 65 are in employment and long- term unemployment is particularly prevalent among younger and older employees;
Amendment 84 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F
Recital F
F. whereas one of the five Europe 2020 targets aims at reducing by at least 20 million the number of people in or at risk of poverty and social exclusion; whereas almost 123 million people in the EU are in this situation, 7 million more than when the commitments for the Europe 2020 target were made; whereas in 2013 26.5 million children in the EU28 were at risk of falling into poverty or social exclusion; whereas in 2012 32.2 million persons with disabilities over 16 years are in this situation;
Amendment 100 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G
Recital G
G. whereas the demographic old age dependency rationumber of people aged 65 or above relative to those aged between 15 and 64 in the EU12 is projected to increase from 27.8 % to 50.1 % until 2060, and the total economic dependency ratio13 is expected to stabilise at over 120 % up to the middle of the next decade and then to rise above 140 % by 2060; whereas these factors may appear as sufficient justification for the fact that the great majority of European citizens agree that it is important to restructure their pensions systems; __________________ 12 People aged 65 or above relative to those between aged 15 and 64.null 13 Total inactive population relative to employed people aged between 20 and 64.
Amendment 102 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G a (new)
Recital G a (new)
G a. whereas the growing number of dependent older people has and will have an increasing impact on health and long term care systems, the need for both formal as well as informal care resources; and whereas current social security systems do not take sufficient account of the situation of informal carers, which constitute a huge resource to society;
Amendment 138 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Notes that good and qualityquality and inclusive jobs constitute an essential pillar for social fairness, promoting human dignity for all; believes that in this sense employment and growth must be placed at the centre of EU policies, especially for youth and for the Generation 50+, as a way to construct a more sustainable social European Union;
Amendment 153 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Calls on the Commission to foster, at Member State level, forms of cooperation involving governments, enterprises, educational institutions and social partners, with a view to adaptingimprove Member States’ education and training systems and implement a dual education system to meeto the needs of the labour market;
Amendment 171 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Welcomes the Commission´s proposal to enhance the Youth Guarantee at national, regional and local level, and stresses its importance for school-to-work transitions; stresses the need to guarantee suitable forms of collaboration between public and private employment services on national and European level;
Amendment 179 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Welcomes the Commission’s initiative for an individualised approach for the long- term unemployed; considers that such an approach will require an increased effort in terms of human resources, calling for participants with the educational level needed to be able to orientate the unemployed on how to overcome possible gaps in education or training; stresses that professional requalification processes require adequate financial resources that need to be channelled to the unemployed individuals at all ages;
Amendment 185 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Recalls that the integration of long-term unemployed individuals is crucial for their self-confidence and future development and is key to fighting poverty and guaranteeing the sustainability of national social security systems; calls the Commission to support efforts to reduce long-term unemployment by creating inclusive lifelong learning opportunities for workers and job seekers at all ages;
Amendment 203 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Notes that the EU continues to suffer from structural problems that need to be addressed urgently, pointing up the need to continue prioritising investment, structural reforms and responsible fiscal consolidation, thus reinforcing a favourable environment for business with a view to creating more quality jobs while balancing the social and economic dimensions; stresses that those priorities will only be achieved if investment in human capital and life-long learning is prioritised as a common strategy;
Amendment 214 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Draws attention to the urgent need to fight undeclared work, which jeopardises both the quality of work and workers’' access to social protection systems and national public finances and creates unfair competition between European enterprises; calls on the Member States to reinforce labour inspection mechanisms and to design measures to enable workers in the grey economy to have access to employment protection regimes; encourages Member States to implement rates of taxation related to the diverse forms of employment relationships, as one of the incentives for stable contracts;
Amendment 237 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Calls on the Member States to gradually shift taxes from labour to other sources, and to implement tax rules that foster incentives to entrepreneurship and employment creation, especially for highly qualified young people, in order as well as for the Generation 50+ in order to utilize their professional experience and to secure the transfer of their know-how to young colleagues and to boost research and innovation projects within European enterprises;
Amendment 253 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Calls on the Member States to modernise their current social protection systems, in order to guarantee their sustainability in the face of expected ageing and new social risks; considers that pension schemes should be linked not only to life expectancy but also to other social and labour factorfactors like birth rates, labour market trends, individual and public state of health and migration figures, while not jeopardising the sustainability of public finances;
Amendment 265 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Calls on the Member States to examine the persistence of low fertility rates in the EU; calls on the Commission to promote family-friendly policies that enhance parents’ capacity to ensure their children’s and other dependents' care and wellbeing; encourages the Member States to consider applying more favourable fiscal differentiation in line with the number of children in a family;
Amendment 275 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Underlines the need to promote sustainable growth leading to the creation of more and better jobs and tangible prospects for all, young people in particular, in order to respond to the internal and external challenges facing the EU;
Amendment 280 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 a (new)
Paragraph 15 a (new)
15 a. Underlines that the demographic change will lead to a decrease of young workers and consequently to an increasing need to retain older workers in employment; calls on the Member States to adapt their labour market strategies and pension systems as well as improve adult education in order to react to the demographic change accordingly;
Amendment 287 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Calls on the Commission, in close cooperation with Member States, to take steps to provide better information on all European funds and programmes that have the potential to boost entrepreneurship, investment and access to financing, such as Erasmus for Entrepreneurs, the European Employment Service (EURES), the programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (COSME), the programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI);
Amendment 294 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Points out that enterprises in the social economy, including social services face as many difficulties as traditional enterprises in obtaining public or private financing; underlines the need to give them more support, especially as regards access to the different forms of financing, such as European funds; calls on the Commission to create a tool within EFSI aiming specifically to support investment into the social economy and social service providers;
Amendment 302 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 a (new)
Paragraph 18 a (new)
18 a. Underlines the high societal and economic value of investment in social protection, including social services; states that such social investment should be given more flexibility within the Macro-economic Imbalance Procedure, therefore encouraging Member States to invest in social services for positive social and economic growth.
Amendment 310 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
20. Points out that investment priorities must be oriented to infrastructurale and human capital development projects where these are clearly needed in order to ensure social fairness or enhance sustainable growth; calls on the Commission to require both a prior presentation of the expected social and economic outcomes of any EU-funded investment project and its subsequent monitoring and evaluation;
Amendment 319 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22
Paragraph 22
22. Welcomes the Commission’s call on Member States to increase their social investments, especially in healthcare(formal and informal) health and long-term care as well as social services, childcare, housing support and rehabilitation services; calls on enterprises and other eligible beneficiaries to make better use of the investment mechanisms provided by European funds and projects having direct application;
Amendment 326 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22 a (new)
Paragraph 22 a (new)
22 a. Points out that formal and especially informal carers represent an important pillar for mastering the rapidly growing demands of the future care systems in Europe; underlines the need to improve the social protection for caring family members, who often have to reduce their paid jobs in order to provide unpaid care and lose social security rights as a result;
Amendment 332 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24
Paragraph 24
24. Agrees on the need to develop a process of upward economic and social convergence in order to foster social and economic cohesion between Member States and their regions, but points out that this must be viewed as a goal of a common project in which social and civil dialogue plays a key role;
Amendment 345 #
Motion for a resolution
Subheading 5
Subheading 5
Social inclusion as a challengen opportunity for society
Amendment 358 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 27
Paragraph 27
27. Calls on the Member States to implement and monitor more efficient and effective forms of social protection systems and income support, with a special focus on groups at risk in order to ensure that these systems offer a minimum standard of living for the unemployed and those at risk of poverty and social exclusion throughout the life-cycle, while guaranteeing that such mechanisms do not perpetuate social dependency and constitute an incentive to education or entering the job market;
Amendment 376 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 29
Paragraph 29
29. Points out to the Member States, in view of the ageing of Europe’'s citizens, the social risk implied in not being able to guarantee the adequacy, sustainability and effectiveness of social security systems over the coming decades; therefore calls for effective social protection systems to be developed to mitigate the risk of long- term care needs, including preventative and rehabilitation services and support for informal carers; calls for increased attention to specific groups when implementing pension reforms, such as older women and very old persons; calls especially for the implementation of the 2015 Council conclusions on equal income opportunities for women and men: closing the gender gap in pensions;
Amendment 383 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 30
Paragraph 30
30. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to work together on removing the obstacles to fair labour mobility, ensuring on one hand to increase the employment rate and on the other hand to ensure that EU mobile workers are not treated abusively;
Amendment 391 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 30 a (new)
Paragraph 30 a (new)
30 a. Calls on the Commission to develop a concrete plan on how the European Semester will be used to implement the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities;
Amendment 416 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32
Paragraph 32
32. Welcomes the fact that the Commission has clearly distinguished a European and a national phase with regard to the European Semester; stresses the need for closer coordination between the European institutions in the design, implementation and evaluation of the European strategy for growth; calls on the Commission to establish a clear agenda in this respect, also involving the social partners and civil society and the national parliaments;
Amendment 424 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 33
Paragraph 33
33. Believes that, in order to match European and national policies on growth and guarantee their suitability on the ground, it is crucial to strengthen the role of the social partners at both European and national level; stresses that, in order to progress with convergence and balance competitiveness and fairness, social dialogue and civil dialogue must be pursued in all the phases of the Semester;