Activities of Jean LAMBERT related to 2015/2330(INI)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on European Semester for economic policy coordination: Employment and Social Aspects in the Annual Growth Survey 2016 PDF (489 KB) DOC (168 KB)
Amendments (62)
Amendment 22 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 34 a (new)
Citation 34 a (new)
- having regard to the Eurofound report (2014) 'Changes to wage-setting mechanisms in the context of the crisis and the EU's new economic governance regime';
Amendment 26 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 34 b (new)
Citation 34 b (new)
- Having regard to the Commission's Recommendation on the active inclusion of people excluded from the labour market (October 2008),
Amendment 29 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 34 c (new)
Citation 34 c (new)
- having regard to the Commission recommendation of 20 February 2013 entitled 'Investing in Children: Breaking the Cycle of Disadvantage' (COM(2013)778)
Amendment 30 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 34 d (new)
Citation 34 d (new)
- Having regard to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities' Concluding Observations on the initial report of the European Union (September 2015)
Amendment 31 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 34 e (new)
Citation 34 e (new)
- having regard to its resolution of 16 January 2014 on an EU Homelessness Strategy
Amendment 32 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 34 f (new)
Citation 34 f (new)
- Having regard to the Communication Strategy for equality between women and men 2010-2015 and subsequent Strategic engagement for equality between women and men 2016-2019, which specifically refer to women's employment and economic independence;
Amendment 40 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas unemployment has been diminishing since 2013 thanks to supportive macroeconomic policies and the impact of structural reforms in some Member States; whereas it nevertheless remains too high, currently affecting 9.9 % of active citizens, i.e. 23 million Europeans, about half of them being long- term unemployed;
Amendment 53 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B a (new)
Recital B a (new)
B a. Whereas the employment rate of women (63.5% in May 2015) remains far below the Europe 2020 headline target of 75% and women's part-time employment rate remains excessively high at 32.2% compared to men 8.8% and thus more robust measures are required to narrow these gaps;
Amendment 71 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas undeclared work has serious budgetary implications and leads to loss of tax revenue and social security contributions, as it produces negative effects on employment, productivity and quality of work, skills development and lifelong learning, as well as on the acquisition of pension rights andparticularly for women as demonstrated by the EU average pension gap of 39%, access to healthcare; and budgetary implications due to loss of tax revenue and social security contributions; whereas an inadequate basic income can encourage people not to declare all income
Amendment 78 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas although atypical or non- standard forms of employment do not in themselves constitute precarious work, it is more likely to be found where contracts of this nature apply, albeitnd such contracts, including zero-hour contracts, account for a minoritygrowing number of existing employment relationships;
Amendment 89 #
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 the number of people experiencing poverty in the EU is increasing, with almost 123 million people in the EU are in this situation; whereas in 2013 26.5 million children in the EU28 were at risk of falling into poverty or social exclusion;
Amendment 94 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G
Recital G
G. whereas the demographic old age dependency ratio 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. 13 Total inactive population relative to employed people aged between 20 and 64.
Amendment 106 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H
Recital H
H. whereas public debt remains too high in many Member States (the highest figures being for Greece at 167.8 % and Italy at 136 %), impeding growth and making the entire Union more vulnerable to crises;
Amendment 110 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital I a (new)
Recital I a (new)
I a. Whereas 20 % of European Social Fund expenditure should be used to address poverty and social exclusion in the Member States
Amendment 112 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital J
Recital J
J. whereas the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) has already approved 69 projects in 18 countries, and signed 56 operations (with total financing under EFSI of around EUR 1.4 billion ), and this is expected to lead to more than 22 EUR billion in investment and to involve around 71 000 SMEs; whereas more effort is needed to ensure that funding is provided for social infrastructure such as childcare;
Amendment 115 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital M
Recital M
M. whereas 6.9 million EU citizens exercise their fundamental right to free movement and live and work in another EU country; whereas there are over 1.1 million cross-border or frontier workers;
Amendment 118 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital M a (new)
Recital M a (new)
M a. whereas the ongoing arrival of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers from outside the EU will require both short term actions in terms of immediate social assistance and medium to long term actions to ensure access to employment, housing, education, healthcare and social integration.
Amendment 120 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital M b (new)
Recital M b (new)
M b. Whereas evidence points to an increase in homelessness across the EU; whereas, according to the latest Eurostat data release, 11.4% of the EU population was confronted in 2014 with housing cost overburden, and the Draft Joint Employment Report clearly identifies housing overburden as one of the key social trends to watch, significantly deteriorating in several countries; and whereas fuel poverty is a major problem for Europe with between 50 and 125 million people unable to afford a proper indoor thermal comfort
Amendment 128 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. 1. Welcomes the fact that the Commission’'s Annual Growth Survey (AGS) underlines the need to pay more attention to social fairness in the context of the new macroeconomic adjustment programmes, adding three social indicators (activity rate, youth unemployment and long-term unemployment) in the 2016 Alert Mechanism Report; stresses that the need to invest in social development is not just a means of guaranteeing that economic growthsustainable and inclusive economic development and convergence can be achieved, but must also be a specific target in itself; Supports the Commission's call for investment in services such as housing support, healthcare, childcare, and rehabilitation services; Calls on the Commission to integrate in the MIP scoreboard relevant indicators on housing affordability, and to urge the Member States to monitor and promote access to decent and affordable housing for all;
Amendment 131 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1 a. Calls for the inclusion of additional social and environmental indicators which should be on at least an equal footing with the rest of the MIP indicators; is of the opinion that such indicators must also be able to trigger corrective action and not merely to 'monitor' the overall socioeconomic situation; insists that excessive unemployment, inequality and poverty are also threatening imbalances for the Eurozone; recalls its repeated requests to adopt indicators regarding resource efficiency, indicators on unit capital costs and other indicators relevant for monitoring progress towards updated EU2020 objectives, including non-cost competitiveness-related indicators in fields such as R&D, education and training
Amendment 141 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Notes that good and quality jobs and high social standards constitute an essential pillar for social fairness, promoting human dignity for all; believes that in this sense employment and growthcreating quality employment and ensuring high social standards must be placed at the centre of EU policies, especiallyincluding for youth, as a way to construct a more sustainable and socially just European Union;
Amendment 145 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2 a. calls on the European Commission to define and quantify its' concept of social fairness, taking into account both employment and social policies, to be achieved through the 2016 Annual Growth Survey and European Semester.
Amendment 147 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2 b (new)
Paragraph 2 b (new)
2 b. Calls on the Commission to engage Member States in strategies and actions to reduce poverty and social exclusion in line with the Europe 2020 strategy.
Amendment 150 #
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, individualised support services social partners and civil society, with a view to adapting Member States’' education and training systems, including, but not limited to the needs of the labour market;
Amendment 160 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3 a. Stresses the need to invest in people as early as possible in the life cycle to reduce inequality and foster social inclusion at a young age; calls therefore for access to quality, inclusive and affordable early childhood education and care (ECEC) services for all children in all Member States;
Amendment 164 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Recalls the importance of skills and competences acquired in non-formal and informal learning environments in terms of improving the employability of young people; and people having spent time out of the labour market for caring responsibilities;stresses, therefore, the importance of creating a validation system for non- formal and informal forms of knowledge, especially those acquired via voluntary activities;
Amendment 170 #
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; and individualised and mainstream social support services; emphasises the need to ensure that the Youth Guarantees reaches young people facing multiple exclusion and extreme poverty.
Amendment 177 #
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 for all actors involved, including social service providers, to ensure that the planned personalised approach can be implemented; calls for adequate support to jobseekers in the form of integrated service provision and access to high- quality education orand training to overcome possible gaps ; stresses that professional requalification processes require adequate financial resources that need to beif they are to be effectively channelled to the unemployed;
Amendment 184 #
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 guaranteeingsocial exclusion and will ultimately contribute towards the sustainability of national social security systems;
Amendment 190 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7 a. Underlines however that a job is not always a route out of poverty with 12.7% of working age people suffering in-work poverty (2014), increased from 11% in 2009. Underlines that an integrated active inclusion and social investment approach is essential to ensure access to quality jobs, inclusive labour markets and adequate income support;
Amendment 194 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 b (new)
Paragraph 7 b (new)
7 b. Emphasises the urgent need to ensure that the EU's efforts to fight poverty and social exclusion actively address the growing number of people facing extreme housing exclusion and homelessness, which are currently not captured by indicators used to measure the EU poverty target but which represent an alarming social reality affecting at least 4 million people every year.
Amendment 202 #
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 upto the need to continue prioritising social investment, socially and economically balanced structural reforms and responsible fiscal consolidation, thus reinforcing a favourable environment for business with a view to creating more quality jobs while balancquality job creation, social progress and investment delivering bothe social and economic dimensions;returns. stresses that those priorities will only be achieved if investment in human capital is prioritised as a common strategy;
Amendment 209 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Stresses the need to promote and protect thereorientate the Union's economic policies towards a social market economy, which provides a framework within which competitiveness contributes to social justice and social justice stimulates competitiveness;, decent work and high social standards contribute to social justice and equality
Amendment 218 #
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 and social 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; calls on Member States to enforce penalties on exploitative employers
Amendment 226 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Considering that flexicurity has to be carefully considered if the aim is to contributes to avoiding labour fragmentation and promoting the creation of more quality jobs; calls on the Member States to modernisensure their employment protection legislation in order to guarantees more stability in transitions between jobs, as well as employees’' access to social security and welfare rights; calls on the Commission to step up monitoring of the abusive practice of successive fixed-term contracts, and zero-hour contracts in both private and public sectors;
Amendment 242 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Calls on the Member States to gradually shift taxes from labour to other sources whilst ensuring that social security systems are adequately financed, and to implement fair tax rules that foster incentives to entrepreneurship and employment creation, especially for highly qualified young people, in order to boost research and innovation projects within European enterprises;
Amendment 261 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Calls on the Member States to modernise their currentensure that their social protection systems, in order to guarantee their sustainability in the face of expected ageing; considers that pension schemes should be linked not only to life expectancy but also to other guarantee their performance in tackling and preventing poverty and inequalities while ensuring their sustainability in the face of expected demographic, social and economic challenges; considers that pension schemes should provide guarantees against old age poverty and be linked to a range of social and labour factors, while not jeopardising the sustainability of public finances;
Amendment 267 #
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 enhanceenabling policies in the field of family support and parents’ capacity to ensure their children’s wellbeing; encourages the Member States to consider applying more favourable fiscal differentiation in line wvention of social exclusion such as adequate maternity and paternity leave provisions and the access to social services such as childcare that enhance parents' capacithy the number of children o ensure their children's wellbeing a familynd improve women's access to the labour market;
Amendment 278 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Underlines the need to promote sustainable inclusive growth leading to the creation of more and better jobsquality jobs for all and tangible prospects, including for young people in particular, in order to respond to the internal and external challenges facing the EU;
Amendment 283 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to focus on SMEs as a fundamental key for sustainable development; urges the Member States to implement tax schemes that favour innovative start-ups and the facilitation of job creation by SMEs and to monitor the impact of tax incentives on sustainable development, and to develop mechanisms that might icompel such enterprises to achieve or operationalisoperate in an international dimension;
Amendment 288 #
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 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); Recalls the importance of the partnership principle, bottom up approach and the importance of adequate resource allocation;
Amendment 300 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Points out that enterprises in the social economy face, including social services, face at least 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 in the social economy and social service provision;
Amendment 303 #
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 development
Amendment 315 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
20. Points out that investment priorities must be oriented to infrastructural and human capital development projects where these are clearly needed in order to ensure social fairnessequality or enhance sustainable growthinclusive growth, such as childcare facilities; calls on the Commission to require both a prior presentation of the expected social, environmental and economic outcomes of any EU-funded investment project and its subsequent monitoring and evaluation;
Amendment 318 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21
Paragraph 21
21. Stresses, taking into account Member States’' difficulties in fully using European funds, that the EU must guarantee proper and better use of its investments, which need to be matched to its priorities and fundamental values as outlined in the treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as the efficient management of its resources, and must also cut red tapereduce barriers with regard to access, implementation and evaluation;
Amendment 322 #
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, childcare, housing support and rehabilitation services; cCalls on enterprises and otherthe Member States to fully implement the Commission's recommendation on Investing in children: breaking the cycle of disadvantage; calls on all eligible beneficiaries to make better use of the investment mechanisms provided by European funds and projects having direct application;
Amendment 330 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23
Paragraph 23
23. CongratulaNotes that the Commission on having enhanced the use of the European Structural and Investment Funds in support of the implementation of the country- specific recommendations, and on having presented a proposal to the Member States on funding for technical assistance; underlines that these funds should not solely be used to implement the country- specific recommendations, potentially leaving out other important investment areas;
Amendment 335 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24
Paragraph 24
24. Agrees on the urgent need to develop a European pillar of social rights and a process of upward economic and social convergence in order to foster social and economic cohesion within and 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 348 #
Motion for a resolution
Subheading 5
Subheading 5
Social inclusion as a challengen opportunity for society
Amendment 350 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 25 a (new)
Paragraph 25 a (new)
25 a. Welcomes the Commission's call on all Member States to increase their social investment, especially in healthcare, childcare, housing support and rehabilitation services;
Amendment 353 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26
Paragraph 26
26. Stresses that the pertinence of the Europe 2020 strategy still maintains its pertinenceincreased since its creation, and calls on the Member States to reinforce its implementation on the ground; asks the Commission and the Council to more closely monitor its global and national implementation; considers it necessary to start projecting a post-Europe 2020 scenario linked to the Sustainable Development Goals;
Amendment 363 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 27
Paragraph 27
27. Calls on the Member States to implement and monitor more effective and efficient forms of social protection systems and income support, in order to ensure that these systems offer a minimumn adequate standard of living for the unemployed and those at risk of poverty and social exclusion, while guaranteeing that such mechanisms do not perpetuate social dependency and constitute an incentive to education or entering the job marketas part of an integrated active inclusion approach which tackles homelessness and provides personalised pathways into quality jobs and access to quality services - particularly housing, education, health, childcare and early learning;
Amendment 365 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 27 a (new)
Paragraph 27 a (new)
27 a. Calls on the Commission to propose a strengthened social pillar based on social rights which can ensure a level playing field across the EU, starting with an EU guarantee of an adequate minimum income, and reinforced employment and social rights;
Amendment 371 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28
Paragraph 28
28. Calls on the Member States to implement the necessary measures for the inclusion of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers; stresses that such an approach (access to education, training and employment, affordable housing and healthcare) will require the allocation of funds that, in so fragile a situation, cannot be provided solely byby some Member States; calls on the Commission to provide the funding required to develop such a strategy as part of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF);
Amendment 380 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 29
Paragraph 29
29. Points out to the Member States, in view of the ageing of Europe’'s citizens and high unemployment rates of young people in some areas, the social risk implied in not being able to guarantee the sustainability and effectiveness of social security systems over the coming decades and the need to invest in better redistribution through tax and benefit systems;
Amendment 386 #
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 that EU mobile workers are not treated abusively and that their employment and social rights are guaranteed;
Amendment 393 #
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, in particular by assessing access to quality community-based services for all people in Europe;
Amendment 401 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31
Paragraph 31
31. WelcomNotes the Commission recommendation on the euro area, which consolidates the joint analysis and definition of strategies of the social and economic dimensions of Member States under EMU, stressing the need for these criteria to be reconciled; however, warns about the development of a two-tier EU;
Amendment 404 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31 a (new)
Paragraph 31 a (new)
31 a. Requests a stronger role for the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, inclusive and sustainable growth, its targets, particularly social ones reflected equally in all the Semester instruments including the CSRs;
Amendment 419 #
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 sustainable and inclusive growth; calls on the Commission to establish a clear agenda and guidelines in this respect, also involving the social partners, civil society and the national parliaments; believes that the Commission could monitor and report whether suggestions to implement certain Country Specific Recommendations in 'consultation with the social partners' were taken up;
Amendment 426 #
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 all stakeholders in the process including civil society, national parliaments and the social partners at both European and national level; stresses that, in order to progress with convergence and balance competitiveness and fairness, social and civil dialogue must be pursued in all the phases of the Semester and in the design, delivery and monitoring of policies;
Amendment 428 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 33 a (new)
Paragraph 33 a (new)
33 a. Believes that the Commission could strengthen the role of the European Semester Officers by better defining their objectives and functions;