Mr President, first of all, I should like, on behalf of the Group of the , to thank Anne Van Lancker and congratulate her on the quality of her report both in terms of its content and the inclusive way she strove to work on it. The apparently technical term ‘social agenda’ in fact covers the day-to-day realities experienced by our fellow citizens. We must both respond to the urgent situation and give practical shape to what has been called the notorious European ‘social model’. We have no right to miss this deadline unless we intend to shatter the expectations of all the citizens and the collective movements they have formed, which are the groups most motivated to establish a European Union which is a community of citizens. The issues to be discussed select themselves: we simply need to respond to the urgency of the situation and bring in legislation to match the declarations made at the Lisbon Summit. We must give the people of Europe the tools and the public policies they need in order to fashion their own place within Europe, in order to ensure that their fundamental rights, including social rights, are safeguarded. The urgency of the social situation and the need to defend the European social model call for initiatives that aim to establish rights: the right to an income, the right to a wage, the right to decent pensions for all within the European Union. Implementing the ambitions for society declared in Lisbon calls for an effort on the part of the Community, an action plan to create jobs in services, especially those related to the information society. As far as that is concerned, the directive proposed in the report in order to guarantee the social protection of new forms of working is essential. It is also important to ensure quality in health, an improved social situation, and an improved environment for everyone – the third system – and tax and legislative measures are essential in order to ensure both the economic longevity and the visibility of this emerging economy of solidarity. We support Anne Van Lancker and Mrs Péry when they propose to quickly adopt the 1998 directive on employee information and consultation and to revise the European Works Council Directive. The fundamental notion of the general interest ought, moreover, to spur us all to approve the proposal to include recitals relating to employment in the regulations and decisions on the mergers currently dictated by considerations of competitiveness. These three examples intended to combat poverty, support the development of activities for job creation, social liaison and quality of life, and to improve employees’ rights, should harness the support of a Parliament that is anxious to propagate the dream of a Europe of the Citizens, although these same citizens currently all too often feel that Europe is a machine commercialising all human activity. A number of amendments betray the terror of some of our fellow Members who get their erasers out as soon as they see the word ‘legislation’. Are they going to go and explain to the people of Europe that Parliament deems it necessary to vote through directives to protect investment and liberalise general interest services, but not to define and regulate what has been described here as the labour market? Such a rejection of legislation, moreover, leads to a plain rejection of negotiation. We even have one amendment that goes as far as proposing to eliminate the objective of concluding European collective agreements between the two sides of industry. It is in this area that we can, in our opinion, find the kind of old-fashioned ideas attributed to those who expect a brave new world to spring out of a free market.

Political group: Verts-ALE