Mr President, the conclusions of this Spring Summit show that government leaders are stubbornly pursuing a policy that is indifferent to the worsening economic and social situation, that turns a blind eye to the high levels of unemployment, poverty and social exclusion and the increase in social inequalities and a deaf ear to the protests of workers threatened by the relocation and restructuring of multinational companies. We saw an example of this only yesterday, with the Canadian multinational Bombardier, which is seeking to close many of its production units in countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Portugal, and which, where my own country is concerned, is the only company engaged in producing rolling stock and train carriages. It is clear today that, four years after expectations were raised by the so-called ‘Lisbon Strategy’, which was approved during the Portuguese presidency, the socio-economic situation is considerably worse and not a single one of the social aims has been attained. This is demonstrated by the new Commissioner for Social Affairs’ acknowledgement that only 10% of the ‘Lisbon Strategy’ objectives have been achieved. This has not stopped the Council from announcing more of the same, however, despite the fact that we are less than two months away from the accession of a further ten countries whose economic and social situation is less than rosy. The Council’s recipe for success is still to commit to this ‘competitiveness’, to promoting what it considers to be business culture, to greater job flexibility and insecurity, to lower labour costs and wage moderation and to attacking public services – in other words, to the neo-liberal agenda of economic and financial groups, instead of being concerned with people’s living and working conditions, with sustainable development, with greater economic and social cohesion and with providing fresh impetus for public and social investment, specifically in the railways, in health, in the environment, in education and in research. The Council suggests that the priority should be to speed up the pace of reforms in the fields of employment, social security and health, despite growing public opposition to measures that, in some of our countries, are jeopardising fundamental social rights. What is being promised is ongoing support for the process of liberalisation and privatisation in many sectors, demonstrating blatant prejudice against the public sector. Continued intervention in this sphere cannot be allowed, because this threatens the existence of high-quality public services and employment, which are crucial to combating poverty and to guaranteeing social inclusion and a high standard of living for the entire population. Economic and monetary policies must be revised, liberalisations must be halted and the Stability Pact must be reviewed in order to prioritise the social criteria, employment, training, education and research, which are all areas crucial to Europe’s sustainable development. What is needed are effective measures to put a brake on the relocation of multinationals and to give European employees’ organisations the right to a ‘suspensive’ veto. Working people must be treated with dignity and well-being and social progress must be placed at the heart of Community policy-making.

Political group: GUE-NGL