25 Amendments of Íñigo MÉNDEZ DE VIGO related to 2011/2052(INI)
Amendment 2 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 2 a (new)
Citation 2 a (new)
– having regard to the revised European Social Charter, in particular Articles 30 (on the right to protection against poverty and social exclusion), 31 (on the right to housing) and 16 (on the right of the family to social, legal and economic protection) thereof,
Amendment 24 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas the most vulnerable groups have been those most severely affected by the crisis and the associated austerity measures,; whereas 116 million people in the European Union are at risk of poverty and 42 million (i.e. 8%) live ‘in conditions of severe material deprivation and can not afford a number of necessities considered essential in order to live a decent life in Europe’1, __________________ 1 The European Platform against Poverty and Social Exclusion (COM(2010)758 final).
Amendment 29 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas severe poverty represents a violation of human rights and a serious erosion of human dignity,
Amendment 45 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas the Europe 2020 strategy aims to reduce the number of people at risk of poverty by 20 million, on the basis of three indicators (the at-risk-of-poverty rate after social transfers, the material deprivation index and the percentage of people living in jobless households); whereas, given the figures of 116 million at risk of poverty and 42 million living in conditions of severe material deprivation, this aim, while it may be an acknowledgement of the importance of combating poverty and social exclusion, reflects the abandonment from the outset of millions of people in Europe, with the associated risk of generating threshold effects and excluding the most vulnerable people from the scope of policies geared to measurable results,
Amendment A #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Ccalls on the Commission to involve civil society at national and European level and to make discussions with people living in poverty a formal part of the annual convention on povertyboost the involvement in the development of a European strategy at all levels of governance (European, national, regional and local) of organised civil society and of all stakeholders, such as NGOs, social economy organisations, service providers, experts in social innovation and the social partners, as well as people living in poverty themselves, in partnership with the associations in which they freely express their opinions and which have acquired experience and knowledge, particularly through the development of national platforms against poverty and social exclusion in each Member State; calls on the Commission to enhance cooperation between local, regional and national authorities and European Institutions, particularly the European Parliament; believes that the synergies should concern all stakeholders, including SMEs and entrepreneurs; calls for discussions with people living in poverty and social exclusion to be institutionalised, and to be extended at national level, and for their participation and contribution to be made a formal and central part of the annual convention on poverty and social exclusion, and calls for appropriate and regular follow-up of the recommendations so developed;
Amendment AA #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas the Commission’s new strategy for implementation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights aims, in particular, to improve the most disadvantaged people’s access to fundamental rights; whereas the Charter must be respected in its entirety and whereas severe poverty represents a violation of human rights and a serious erosion of human dignity and encourages stigmatisation and injustice; whereas the key objective of income support schemes is to bring people out of poverty and enable them to live in dignity,
Amendment B #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Calls for poverty awareness seminars to be organised in the European institutions and Member State governments by organisations which have specific experience of combating poverty and for experiments in joint training on social and exclusion issues to be made, bringing together European officials and people with hands-on experience of combating poverty;
Amendment C #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Calls for regular, critical monitoring ofthe establishment of a regular, critical evaluation mechanism, involving the European Parliament, the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee, based on precise indicators at national and European level, by which the multiple dimensions of poverty can be evaluated and the Member States’ progress, by gender and age, towards achieving the poverty reduction target, and towards breaking this target down into sub-targets, can be measured, in view of the fact that the lack of a precise definition of poverty leaves too much leeway for the Member States, to break this target down into sub-targets; hus risking aberrant interpretations; calls on the Commission to improve national and European indicators relating to the comparability of national statistics on the poverty of vulnerable people and to promote, with Eurostat, the production of more precise statistics within a comprehensive scoreboard on poverty and social exclusion by means of which it will be possible to track the number of people below the 50% and 40% levels of median income and on this basis to conduct an annual evaluation of the situations of poverty in the EU, the statistical approach of which should be supplemented by a qualitative and participatory approach; calls on the Commission to ensure the policies implemented are beneficial to all and not just to those close to the poverty threshold;
Amendment CC #
Motion for a resolution
Considérant C
Considérant C
C. whereas the Europe 2020 strategy aims todopts, as one of its five major objectives, a soft target, i.e. one without sanctions, aiming at reduceing the number of people at risk of poverty by 20 million, on the basis of three indicators agreed by Member States (the at-risk-of-poverty rate after social transfers, the severe material deprivation index and the percentage of people living in jobless households), and whereas this aim may be an acknowledgement of the importance of combating poverty and social exclusion but, given the figures of 116 million at risk of poverty and 42 million living in conditions of severe material deprivation, it reflects the abandonment from the outset of millions of people in Europe, with the associated risk of generating threshold effects and excluding the most vulnerable people from the scope of policies geared to measurable results; whereas if the most intractable situations are not addressed from the outset, the policies implemented will have no impact on them; whereas the European Platform against poverty constitutes one of the seven flagship initiatives of the EU 2020 strategy,
Amendment D #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Calls for it to be made clear that the Commission will be legally accountable in on the Commission to fully take account of the correct horizontal social clause as specified in Article 9 TFEU, under which the EU is to take into account requirements linked to the promotion of a high level of employment, the guarantee of adequate social protection, the fight against social exclusion, and a high level of education, training and protection of human health, and calls for the Commission to specify how the Platform will affect assessments of the implementation of that clause; calls for the social impact assessments of European policies to go into greater depthe, event that the horizontal social clause is not applied, and calls for the Commission to specify how the Platform will affect assessments of the implementation of that clause where those policies are not initiated by the Commission but by the European Council, as in the case of the Euro Plus pact; considers that such an in- depth analysis of the application of this clause will make it possible to avoid a levelling-down of social standards in Europe and to promote the development of a common social basis in Europe; calls for this social impact assessment to be made with the associations active in combating poverty and to take account of the situation of the poorest people in Europe as a reference; considers that these assessments should involve the European Parliament, the Committee of the Regions, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Commission’s departments responsible for social affairs under the responsibility of a director- general reporting to the General Secretariat of the European Commission;
Amendment H #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Calls on the Commission to specify th, in consultation with the European Central Bank, to propose common principles used to define the ‘basket of basic goods and services’ accessible to all; required to enable everyone to live in dignity, and points out that these immediate needs are inseparable from respect for human dignity and effective access to all fundamental rights – whether civil, political, economic, social or cultural – without exception; calls for the target of price stability to be clarified so as to allow specific national situations to be taken into account that do not necessarily have a significant impact on the euro- system indicators;
Amendment R #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Calls on the Commission to initiate a horizontal anti-discrimination directive with a view to further eradicating discrimination; Urges the Member States to agree and adopt as soon as possible the proposal for a Council directive on implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation (COM(2008)0426); calls on the Commission to continue to support the overcoming of technical difficulties within the Council in order to ensure a swift agreement is reached, and to close gaps in the existing anti-discrimination legislation which is currently not covering all relevant aspects, with a view to further eradicating discrimination, including social discrimination; Note: A citation referring to the Kosa report will be added by oral amendment.
Amendment T #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. AdvocatesRecommends the Member States to adopt a proactive decent housing policy in order to ensure universal access to decent, affordable housingquality housing at affordable prices or on preferential terms of purchase, and to prevent the loss thereof, with guaranteed access to services essential to health and safety, the lack of such housing being a serious affront to dignity, along with a proactive energy policy that steps up the use of renewable energies and boosts energy efficiency in order to combat energy poverty; calls for more attention to be paid to housing for migrants, who are often exploited and forced to live in sub- standard housing; recalls Protocol 26 annexed to the Treaty of Lisbon on social housing and calls for the provisions contained therein to be respected, in particular on the Member States’ freedom to organise social housing, including the question of financing; encourages the Member States to implement special housing programmes and opportunities for homeless people, in view of guaranteeing the most basic standards of living for the most vulnerable in society;
Amendment V #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Calls for the fight against child poverty to focus on prevention through the provision of equal access to high-quality early childhood serviceseducation and care services, in order to prevent children from starting school life with multiple disadvantages, and to other provisions for children (activity centres during the school period and holidays, etc., extracurricular, cultural, sports activities, etc.), ensuring that the network of such services and centres covers all areas adequately; calls for financial support for proven services and the systematic integration of family-support policies in all relevant areas of activity, combining a universal approach with targeted measures for the most vulnerable families, in particular the families of handicapped children, single-parent families and large families; calls for the relationship between parents and children to be given particular attention in programmes to combat poverty and social exclusion in order to prevent children being placed in care as a consequence of severe poverty;
Amendment Z #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas the most vulnerable groups have been those most severely affected by the crisis and the associated austerity measures, 116 million people in the European Union are at risk of poverty and 42 million (i.e. 8%) live ‘in conditions of severe material deprivation and can not afford a number of necessities considered essential in order to live a decent life in Europe’1; whereas poverty is the unacceptable reflection of an uneven distribution of wealth, income and resources in a prosperous European economy; whereas the most vulnerable groups, such as the elderly and disabled people, have been those most severely affected by the financial, economic and social crisis and the austerity measures currently being taken in the EU in the context of the ‘Euro Plus Pact’ and the ‘governance package’, which could worsen the situation for these groups and put at risk of unemployment, economic insecurity or poverty millions of people who were still managing to live on, and meet their basic needs from, their wages or retirement pension, notably as a result of cuts in public service and social assistance budgets; whereas applying tougher conditions and penalties in social activation policies in response to the crisis aggravates the difficulties faced by the most vulnerable people at a time when few decent jobs are on offer; whereas the gap between rich and poor is getting ever wider as the crisis continues; __________________ 1 European Platform against Poverty and Social Exclusion (COM(2010)758 final).
Amendment 149 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Calls on the Commission to involve civil society at national and European level, and to make discussions with people living in poverty a formal part of the annual convention on povertys well as people living in poverty themselves, in partnership with the associations in which they freely express their opinions;
Amendment 156 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Calls for poverty awareness seminars to be organised in the European institutions and Member State governments by organisations which have specific experience of combating poverty;
Amendment 163 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Calls for regular, critical monitoring of the Member States’ progress towards achieving the poverty reduction target, and for the Member States to break this target down into sub-targets; calls on the European Commission to draw up a scoreboard by means of which it will be possible to track the number of people below the 50% and 40% levels of median income and to ensure the policies implemented are beneficial to all and not just to those close to the poverty threshold, and also calls on the European Commission, in collaboration with Eurostat, to draw up a comprehensive scoreboard on poverty and social exclusion to be published each year, the statistical approach of which should be supplemented by a qualitative and participatory approach; this scoreboard should complement the scoreboard on macroeconomic imbalances created to prevent and correct macroeconomic imbalances and evaluated annually; it should be referred to in the annual report provided for in Article 11 of the Regulation on the prevention and correction of macroeconomic imbalances;
Amendment 183 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Calls for it to be made clear that the Commission will be legally accountable in the event that the horizontal social clause is not applied, and calls for the Commission to specify how the Platform will affect assessments of the implementation of that clause; calls for this assessment of the social impact of European policies to be carried out with the persons concerned, taking the poorest amongst them as a reference, and for the fight against poverty and for access to basic rights to be coordinated by the Commissioners responsible, under the responsibility of a director-general reporting to the General Secretariat of the European Commission;
Amendment 196 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Calls on the Commission, in consultation with the European Central Bank, to specify the common principles used to define the ‘basket of basic goods and services’ accessible to all and to provide a definition of price stability; points out that these immediate needs are inseparable from respect for human dignity and effective access to all fundamental rights – whether civil, political, economic, social or cultural – without exception;
Amendment 213 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7a. Calls for the Platform to be geared towards asserting the rights which enable everyone to live in dignity, particularly in the field of employment, housing, health care, social security and adequate living standards, justice, education, training and culture, and the protection of families and children;
Amendment 214 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7a. Calls for the Fundamental Rights Agency to produce a study on effective access by the poorest people to the whole range of fundamental rights and on the discrimination they face, with the participation of NGOs in which socially excluded can freely express themselves;
Amendment 307 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Calls on the Commission to initiate a horizontal anti-discrimination directive with a view to further eradicating discrimination, including social discrimination;
Amendment 329 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Advocates a proactive housing policy in order to ensure universal access to decent, affordable housing, the lack of which is a serious affront to dignity, along with a proactive energy policy that steps up the use of renewable energies and boosts energy efficiency;
Amendment 353 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Calls for the fight against child poverty to focus on prevention through the provision of access to early childhood services, ensuring that the network of such services covers all areas adequately; calls for the relationship between parents and children to be given particular attention in programmes to combat poverty in order to prevent children being placed in care as a consequence of severe poverty;