28 Amendments of Eugenia RODRÍGUEZ PALOP related to 2022/2151(INI)
Amendment 10 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas recent studies have shown that social inequalities are the biggest concern of people in the EU; whereas high income inequalities can have damaging effects on economic growth and endanger social cohesion; whereas the spiralling cost of living and skyrocketing inflation, fuelled by huge increases in the price of energy, fuel, food and essential goods throughout Europe is creating an economic and social crisis, the likes of which many Europeans have not experienced in their lifetime;
Amendment 16 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas in-work poverty is exploding and remains a challenge for the Member States; whereas in most European countries, wages are falling far behind inflation, meaning a real-terms pay cut for millions of workers; whereas concerns over raising wages leading to a wage-inflation spiral have proven to be wrong; whereas company profits and dividends pay-out reached record highs in the second quarter of 2022; whereas low- income workers and vulnerable groups are being hit the hardest, but middle-class living standards are quickly deteriorating too;
Amendment 21 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas climate change, global warming and loss of biodiversity are exponentially accelerating according to the latest IPCC report, illustrated by recent dramatic and extreme weather events across the globe; whereas climate breakdown and extreme weather events consequences are being felt more intensely and more frequently by European citizens and workers; whereas 2030 decarbonisation targets have been raised to reach carbon-neutrality by 2050; whereas increased mitigation and adaptation efforts lead to profound transformation of the European and national economies and labour markets; whereas climate change and environmental destruction have exacerbated inequalities and disproportionately affect the poor and the most vulnerable groups;
Amendment 26 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas rapid increases in energy prices and inflation across the EU are placing a burden on households; whereas the liberalisation of the energy sector and the electricity market have failed to guarantee low prices and the necessary investment in renewable energy; whereas even though there is some optimism that inflation might have peaked in Europe at the end of 2022, the European Central Bank (ECB) projects high levels for 2023 (far above its 2% target) and is set to continue its interest rate tightening course in the coming months;
Amendment 33 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E a (new)
Recital E a (new)
E a. Whereas citizens across the EU face growing difficulties in finding affordable housing, mainly due to housing speculation, the expansive and unregulated growth of short-term rentals and the consequential increase in rental prices, combined with the rising cost of living;
Amendment 34 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E b (new)
Recital E b (new)
Amendment 36 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F
Recital F
F. whereas the new digital economy shouldhas the potential to generate benefits for society as a whole by improving quality of life and working conditions and creating new employment opportunities; whereas digitalisation, robotization, automation and artificial intelligence are expected to benefit citizens and society by improving quality of life and creating new employment opportunities, while also posing a number of risks and challenges that need to be addressed;
Amendment 38 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F a (new)
Recital F a (new)
Amendment 47 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Highlights the fact that the swift and coordinated EU policy action during the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented economic shocks and protected the population from the most adverse consequences of the crisis; believes that, although the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine poses multiple new economic, social and geopolitical challenges to the EU economy and society, other, longer- standing social challengrises, climate and biodiversity emergencies and inequalities continue to grow and must be tackled;
Amendment 50 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Endorses the Commission’s ambition of further strengthening coordinated EU policy responses to mitigate in the short term the burden that high energy prices, inflation, supply-chain disruptions, rising debt levels and the increased cost of borrowing are placing on European households and businesses; insists that a profound transformation of the European energy model, moving away from market-based approaches, speculation and profit maximization, is necessary to ensure universal access to decarbonised sources of energy and to eradicate energy poverty; highlights the fact that social investment is essential to allow for sustainable growthdevelopment in the medium and long term and that national welfare systems have an essential stabilisation function;
Amendment 63 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Stresses that quality and well- funded public services are pillars of democracy and a bulwark against populism, ensure core democratic values including respect for fundamental and human rights and play a crucial role in overcoming crises; calls for the revision of the legal framework for services of general economic interest to ensure that households in need haveuniversal access to good- quality essential services, particularly housing, energy, transport, water, the internet and sanitation; calls on Member states and local authorities to strongly consider bringing into public hands essential public services, such as housing, energy, transport, water and sanitation, where these services have been privatized or outsourced;
Amendment 71 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. SupportsCalls on the Commission to develop and implement a different economic governance architecture in the EU based on solidarity, integration, social justice and convergence, fair distribution of wealth, gender equality, high-quality public services, including public education system for all, quality employment and sustainable development; calls on a more democratic European Semester processeconomic coordination, with Parliament strongly involved in setting economic policy priorities as well as in the taking of economic governance decisions, especially those with a strong social dimension; considers that thea thoroughly revised European Semester process should follow the community method and be agreed between the Council and Parliament;
Amendment 85 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Supports a shift towards a sustainable, inclusive and resilient growthdevelopment model, strengthening the sustainable development and resilience of the EU’s economy and the full implementation of the EPSR, including its relevant headline targets for 2030, a social progress protocol and promoting future- oriented investments focused on the just green and digital transitions, with a strong social dimension, including gender equality;
Amendment 89 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. WelcomesTakes note of the revised European Semester process, with a broader scope and enhanced multilateral surveillance; highlights with concern that individual adjustment path will be discussed with the Commission and, once positively assessed, will be adopted by the Council, thus providing greater discretionary powers to the Commission and the Council and benefiting larger and more powerful countries to the detriment of the smaller ones;
Amendment 101 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Is concerned that the constraints imposed by the stability and convergence programmes might hinder the proper implementation of several principles of the EPSR; considers that the current European fiscal rules can pose significant obstacles to necessary public investment and to financing the just transition to a zero carbon economy; regrets that the Commission’s proposal for the reform of the EU Economic Governance Framework does not include proposals for the review of the debt and deficit limits; underlines that in order to stimulate true solidarity, local production and fair, inclusive and sustainable development, the Stability and Growth Pact must be replaced by a Sustainable Development and Employment Pact; recalls the proposal of a golden rule on public investment in order to exclude public investment from the deficit criterion for all investment categories that benefit the people, such as green investment;
Amendment 115 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Calls on the Commission to present a regulation on a social convergence framework, establishing a new mechanism to monitor social convergence risks, prevent other policy actions or economic shocks from having negative social spillover effects on upward social convergence, detect potential setbacks for the proper implementation of the EPSR and establish mandatory social targets to be achieved; believes that social divergence risks should be included in the country- specific recommendations and taken into account when defining fiscal adjustment paths;
Amendment 124 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Stresses the importance of better assessing the distributional impact of existing and new policies and reforms monitored through the European Semester process; calls on the Commission to include distributional impact assessment requirements in the NRPs; points out that fiscal consolidationmeasures can only be fair and sustainable if the distributional impact of reallocated expenditure or shifts in revenues is well calibrated and contributes to reducing social, economic and regional inequalities;
Amendment 131 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Considers that the revised social scoreboard does not properly cover the 20 EPSR principles; calls, therefore, for the improvement of the social scoreboard and the inclusion of relevant indicators to identify social divergences through a dynamic assessment; draws attention to the importance of including indicators that fully reflect the trends in and causes of inequality, such as indicators on good- quality employment, wealth distribution, universal access to good-quality public services, including energy, water and sanitation, adequate pensions, minimum income schemes, occupational diseases (including mental health conditions) and unemployment benefits, as well as indicators measuring the social impact of environmental degradation and climate change; reminds the Commission that the ‘at risk of poverty or social exclusion’ (AROPE) indicator does not capture the wider and more complex causes of inequalities;
Amendment 133 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. AcknowledgNotes the Commission proposal for the revision of the economic governance framework to strengthen debt sustainability and enhance sustainable and inclusive growth through investment and reforms; points out that cyclical expenditure for unemployment as well as other social expenditure and investment required to comply with NRRP milestones must be excluded from excessive-deficit calculations in order to increase fairness in the green and digital transitions, social resilience and the implementation of the EPSR, while ensuring the sustainability of public finances in the Member States; believes that tax systems should be designed in a way that reduces inequalities, promotes fairness and protects households, and should be balanced in order to make systems fairer and more efficient; stresses that public revenue could be used to fund key priorities and help address Member States’ fiscal challenges, as well as contribute to the long-term sustainability of public finances; calls on the Commission and the Member States to take real measures to combat tax avoidance and tax fraud as an important means of reducing economic inequalities and improving the collection of tax revenue in the Member States; recalls that an effective minimum tax rate for large multinationals within the European Union can contribute to tackling the issue of tax dumping;
Amendment 142 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Is concerned about the current economic landscape, forecasts for the near future and the impact that wage increases below inflation could have on living standards in the EU; calls on a fair redistribution of the recent record profit in sector where companies have profited from support by public authorities and funds; calls on wages to be raised in line with inflation and productivity gains; calls on the Member States to rapidly implement the provisions established in the Minimum Wages Directive1 , so that minimum wages are increased to at least 60 % of a country’s gross median salary or 50 % of the gross average; calls on the Commission to monitor the state of play in relation to minimum wages and ensure that low-end salaries, and particularly minimum wages, reflect the soaring cost of living; calls on the Commission to strengthen the collective bargaining coverage by revising the European public procurement directive in order to establish conditionality for companies to comply with collective bargaining agreements, including strengthening the social clause and excluding companies from tenders which have engaged in union-busting or have refused to participate in collective bargaining; _________________ 1 Directive (EU) 2022/2041 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 October 2022 on adequate minimum wages in the European Union, OJ L 275, 25.10.2022, p. 33.
Amendment 160 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14 a (new)
Paragraph 14 a (new)
Amendment 176 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 – point e a (new)
Paragraph 15 – point e a (new)
e a) funding schemes to support households in energy efficiency renovations in order to tackle energy poverty;
Amendment 180 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Calls on the Commission to propose a new directive on mental health, to prevent and manage the psychosocial risks at work and ensure the well-being of workers; calls on the Commission to propose a directive to regulate teleworking conditions across the EU and ensure decent working and employment conditions in the digital economy; considers that the right to disconnect is essential to ensuring the mental well- being of employees and the self-employed, not least for female workers and workers in non-standard forms of work, and should be complemented by a preventive and collective approach to work-related psychosocial risks; calls on the Commission to propose a directive on the right to disconnect; highlights that the Commission’s upcoming initiative on “a comprehensive approach to mental health” to be published in June is a good opportunity to launch above-mentioned directives;
Amendment 183 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Highlights that, with the working- age population shrinking, policies that bring more people into the labour market are essential; calls on the Member States to ensure access for young people to paid, quality and inclusive traineeships and apprenticeships; insists that young people receive adequate and quality first working experiences, opportunities for upskilling and new qualifications or credentials; condemns the practice of unpaid internships as a form of exploitation of young workers, and a violation of their rights, and calls on the Commission and the Member States, in collaboration with Parliament, and respecting the principle of subsidiarity, to ban unpaid internships and propose a common legal framework to ensure fair remuneration for traineeships and apprenticeships in order to avoid exploitative practices; condemns the practice of zero-hour contracts and calls on the Member States to provide support to employers providing traineeships and apprenticeships to young persons with disabilities; calls on the Commission to review existing European instruments such as the Quality Framework for Traineeships and the European Framework for Quality and Effective Apprenticeships and to include quality criteria for the offers made to young people, including the principle of fair remuneration for trainees and interns, access to social protection, sustainable employment and social rights;
Amendment 194 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. Recalls that the creation of good quality jobs and implementation of retention strategies are the best way to attract a skilled workforce and incentivise employers to invest in their worker’s skills development; Recalls that Cedefop’s reports stress that recruitment difficulties (including owing to skills mismatches) also reflect to a considerable extent poor job quality, a lack of people-oriented HR policy and untapped job design opportunities; calls on the Commission to revise its upskilling and reskilling policies in light of Cedefop’s findings, for instance by elevating skills demands and job complexity at European firms via demand- side interventions;
Amendment 201 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
20. Calls for the EU industrial strategy to ensure that the jobs of tomorrow are not only green, but above all decent, well paid and based on good working conditions and collective agreements, with health and safety at work, robust social protection and, gender equality and life-long learning; calls also for it to ensure that people are adequately remunerated in line with their qualifications and certified competences; stresses the need to prevent a widening gap between different Member states as the result of their fiscal capacities; stresses the need to ensure a level playing field to foster social and economic convergence; calls on Member states to make good use of the Just Transition Fund, and other relevant EU funds and platforms, in order to ensure that the jobs that are being phased-out as a result of the green transition are replaced by quality jobs in the same areas; highlights that any companies benefiting from public funding should have to respect social conditionality, such as workers and trade unions’ and engage in collective bargaining; stresses that any companies benefiting from public funding shouldn’t be allowed to pay out dividend to their shareholders nor buy their own shares;
Amendment 208 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20 a (new)
Paragraph 20 a (new)
20 a. Highlights the potential of the circular economy for modernising the Union’s economy, reducing its energy and resource consumption and transforming whole industrial sectors and their value chains, including recycling and reuse to reduce the dependence to raw resources and materials;
Amendment 209 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20 b (new)
Paragraph 20 b (new)
20 b. Recalls the crucial role played by European, national and sectoral social partners in the anticipation of change; highlights the need to closely involved trade unions and workers’ representatives, at all decision-making level, in order to ensure just transition; calls on Member states to consult social partners in the occasion of the design and implementation of national plans (National Reform Programs, Stability/Convergence Plans or National Recovery and Resilient Plans); stresses the critical role of collective bargaining to ensure highest occupational health and safety standards, relevant skills developments and strategic anticipation of change; stresses that European and international human rights guarantee that all workers have the right to organize, form and join a trade union, engage in collective bargaining, take collective action to defend their rights and enjoy protection under collective agreements, regardless of their employment status; calls on the Member States to remove any national legislation that hampers collective bargaining, including by ensuring trade unions’ access to workplaces for the purpose of organising, information sharing and consultation, thus strengthening workers' representation; calls on the Commission to take these demands into account when presenting its initiative on strengthening social dialogue, both its communication on strengthening social dialogue in the European Union and the Council recommendation to support social dialogue at EU and national level;