22 Amendments of Alex AGIUS SALIBA related to 2022/0212(BUD)
Amendment 1 #
Draft opinion
Recital A (new)
Recital A (new)
A. whereas the crisis resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine will have a serious impact on the social and economic situation in the EU, inter alia on the EU’s labour markets and living conditions and risks negatively impacting growth and employment;
Amendment 2 #
Draft opinion
Recital B (new)
Recital B (new)
B. whereas increasing inflation and, in particular, rapid increases in food and energy prices across the EU are affecting the most vulnerable populations, further increasing inequality, and aggravating poverty and energy poverty; whereas wages are not projected to increase as fast as inflation and therefore workers are losing purchasing power and might see their living conditions worsen in the next few months; whereas this will also exert greater pressure on social policy capacity, as well as on automatic stabilisers such as national unemployment schemes; whereas the European instrument for temporary support to mitigate unemployment risks in an emergency (SURE) adopted by the Commission was a success;
Amendment 3 #
Draft opinion
Recital C (new)
Recital C (new)
C. whereas the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan set a target for the EU to reduce the number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion by at least 15 million, including at least 5 million children, and adopted a series of proposals in order to reach this goal by 2030; whereas in the current context, reaching the target is becoming more challenging, given the projected increase in poverty and unemployment in the months to come; whereas social protection systems are under severe pressure to mitigate the social impact of the crisis, to give support to refugees and to ensure decent living conditions for all, as well as access to quality essential services such as health, education and housing;
Amendment 4 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Stresses that the social consequences of the Russian invasion ofwar in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic, and more generallythe high inflation, and the uncertain economic outlook require a strong response for people, families, workers and businesses; highlights in thatis regard the crucial role of Union funds and financial instruments, including the Next Generation EU with the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), which complement the action by the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) as the key driver for strengthening the social dimension of the Union and ensuring a socially sustainable, just, inclusive and non-discriminatory recovery in line with the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights, as well as the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund for Displaced Workers (EGF) and the Just Transition Fund (JTF);the annual Union budget for year 2023 and in particular the EU funds and financial instruments in the social and employment area, including the Next Generation EU with the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) to ensure a socially sustainable, just, inclusive and non-discriminatory recovery, and the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) as the key driver for strengthening the social dimension of the Union and main instrument for investing in people, promoting high employment levels, building social protection and developing a skilled and resilient workforce ready for the transition to a green and digital economy in line with the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights, as well as the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund for Displaced Workers (EGF), the ReactEU with its additional resources for ESF+ , Youth Employment Initiative (YEI), the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD), and the Just Transition Fund (JTF); supports all efforts in welcoming people fleeing the war in Ukraine and welcomes the triggering of the Temporary Protection Directive and the Cohesion’s action for refugees in Europe (CARE) with regard to persons fleeing the war in Ukraine and seeking refuge on the EU territory of the Union, and calls for continuing funding for its implementation; is concerned at the same time with existing forms of discrimination against other refugees and migrants, against Ukrainian women and their children, and forms of exploitation and unequal treatment in terms of wages and working conditions affecting refugees in too many European countries;
Amendment 9 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Appreciates the current measures put in place by the EU and the Member States to address the disruption coming from the war in Ukraine and to help integrate refugees and alleviate the impact of energy prices on businesses and households, but believes that additional efforts are needed to prevent unemployment and underemployment coming from the effects of the war, by refinancing and prolonging SURE to support employment support measures in the Member States; calls in this regard to reinforce measures for income protection, fight against poverty, just transition and to help alleviate the impact of high levels of inflation on the poorer workers and households over the next couple of years by reactivating and expanding the scope of SURE to support short time work schemes and workers that would be temporarily laid-off; calls also to introduce a permanent instrument in form of a European Unemployment Reinsurance Scheme to protect employment and fight against unemployment, including the preservation of jobs and workers’ income in situations of external shocks;
Amendment 11 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 b (new)
Paragraph 1 b (new)
1b. Is of the opinion that monetary support, given all uncertainties related to the war in Ukraine, to the COVID developments, to inflation, to industrial restructuring and the ecological transition, will still be strongly needed in the months to come and public authorities will need flexibility and insists that until the economic effects of the pandemic are visible such measures must be complemented by the General Escape Clause supported by coherent ECB policies, as well as Stability and Growth pact that aim at an overall well-being of people, labour market inclusiveness, and worker’s protection;
Amendment 13 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Highlights that the EU budget should help create qualityensure just transition, social justice and resilience, create quality and sustainable employment, reduceradicate poverty and increase upward social convergence, especially in a time of unprecedented and cumulated crises, so that no one is left behind; stresses that factors such as supply chain disruption, including in the food supply, high energy prices, and the rising inflation and continued pressure on essential services have exacerbated social and economic inequalities andwill put the EU economy at huge risk in many sectors, with very negative consequences in terms of unemployment, dramatic reduction of purchasing power of households and workers, drop into poverty and social inequalities of vast areas of our societies, continued pressure on essential services, worsened the living and working conditions, as well as the mental health, safety and well- being of many workers and their families; insists on the need to tackle territorial and regional disparities and to increase support to the most vulnerable, deprived and disadvantaged groups, such as children and youth, LGBTIQ+ families or single parent families, person with disabilities, older persons, migrants and refugees and Roma people; takes note of the Commission’s intention to come up with an amending letter this autumn with regards to the budgetary consequences of the war in Ukraine and the RePowerEU initiative; stresses in thatis regard the importancenecessity of taking into account the socio- economical implications of the war and recommends that the potential of supplementing ESF+ funding be analysed;calls for a temporary European social resilience package coordinating a set of measures and means to strengthen social welfare and social protection systems in the EU, including the continuation and refinancing of SURE as long as the socio- economic consequences of the war continue to have a negative impact on the labour market, and the creation of a new EU fund for social emergencies (a ‘social rescue facility’), for crises situations of a different nature, which are becoming increasingly multi-faceted, hybrid and complex.
Amendment 19 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Believes that addressing social gaps with EU and governments’ budgets through social investment in key policy areas improving the living and working conditions for people affected by the high inflation, the war in Ukraine, the health crisis or by transition of the accelerating green and digital transformations should be at the heart of the recovery strategy of the EU; to this end, considers that detecting social risks and taking into account the divergent employment effects and long-term unemployment across particular industries should be adequately addressed; calls therefore on the Commission to present a Sustainable Development Goal expenditure and tracking methodology for the social expenditure in the EU budget based on the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights and a Social Scoreboard and well-being indicators to measure the overall impact of different funds, instruments and facilities financed under the MFF and NGEU;
Amendment 24 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. SHighlights that, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to create uncertainties, it is therefore important to continue financing the recovery and to address the social and employment- related challenges resulting from the pandemic, as well as support workers and businesses in the move towards a more solidarity-based digital, greener and climate neutral economy; stresses the importance of adequate policies and measures to support labour market just transition, as well as to further develop resilient social systems around the UnionEU; insists on the need for up- and reskilling policies to address the demographic challenge and the green and digital transitionthe creation of decent and sustainable quality jobs, up- and reskilling of workers, and creating social infrastructures to address the demographic challenge and the green and digital transition; in that regard, highlights the need to fully implement the Just Transition Mechanism and to swiftly adopt of the Social Climate Fund by focusing on social well-being and individuals’ needs; insists on the importance of investing in social inclusion and support measures for children and young people; recalls that the integration into the labour market of the most vulnerable groups, such as people in poverty, people with disabilities, young and eolderly people, the unemployed, and people displaced as a result of the war in Ukraine, is paramount;
Amendment 32 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Is concerned that wages have been on a decreasing trend and that real wages are currently falling following a series of exceptional energy price shocks; considers that there is an urgent need for wage increases, in order to sustain internal demand and inclusive growth, and to reduce the impact of the double crisis on workers and households and that additional efforts are required to help social partners in delivering wage increases through tripartite capacity building frameworks, thus anticipating the expected positive impact of the Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages;
Amendment 35 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. WelcomNotes the Commission proposal to allocate EUR 16,7129 billion in 2023 to ESF+ , but expresses general concerns with the significantly reduced margin for heading 2a and 2b, which will reduce the flexibility to react in a time of rising inflation, uncertain economic situation and social shocks as a consequence of the war in Ukraine and the ongoing health crisis; insists that ESF+ must continue playing a key role in supporting the Member States to achieve high employment levels, adequate social protection and a skilled and resilient workforce ready for the transition to a green and digital economy, but notes that the ESF+ was adopted before the current crisis situation, which currently implies higher public and social investment than planned so far and that the current financial programming does not meet the existing needs; calls therefore for a reinforced ESF+ supplemented by a social rescue facility with increased public support for existing instruments aimed at the poorest in our society;
Amendment 39 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Recognises that ESF + and the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) must contribute to the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights by putting its principles into practice and mainstreaming social objectives in all relevant legislation, policies and implementing plans linked to the NextGenerationEU (NGEU); stresses that adequate resources should be allocated to fund and implement the EPSR Action Plan adopted in Porto and to achieve the Porto’s headline targets and that the RRF should be made permanent and include a minimum 30% of the funds to be social investment strengthening social welfare systems and investing in social security, access to healthcare and education, affordable housing, employment, justice and social services for vulnerable groups; calls in this regard on the Commission to ensure adequate staffing to support this task; believes that the Porto’s poverty targets should be detailed better in all NRRPs and at EU level with an action plan and a strong anti-poverty strategy supported by substantial investments that addresses all aspects of poverty, including in-work poverty;
Amendment 42 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. RCalls on the Member States and the Commission to prioritise combating youth unemployment, in particular as part of the European recovery effort, and to make full use of existing initiatives, such as the Youth Guarantee (YG); recalls the obligation by Member States with a higher share than the average Union rate of young people who are not in employment, education or training that is higher than the Union average to allocate at least 12,5 % of their ESF+ resources to implement the Youth Guarantee and calls on all Member States, not only those most affected by youth unemployment, to continue to invest sufficient ESF+ resources in measures to support youth employment and allocate at least 12,5 % of their ESF+ resources under shared management to targeted actions and structural reforms to support quality youth employment; calls on the Members States to make the best use of the Employment and Social Innovation strand (EaSI) of ESF+ for investment in social innovation and for stimulating labour mobility; takes note of the late start of EaSI in 2021 and the reduced budget for 2023 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and other issues, and expects that it will reach ites full working regime in 2024; sStresses the importance of following up the European Year of Youth 2022 with concrete actions and policies for social inclusion and employment measures for young people beyond 2023 supported by adequate funding; recalls that the Commission should report on a regular basis on the implementation of the Council recommendations establishing a European Child Guarantee and reinforcing a Youth Guarantee;
Amendment 46 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Recalls that Member States with a level of child poverty above the Union average should use at least 5 % of their ESF+ resources to address that issue, whereas Deplores the fact that more than a quarter of all children in the EU are in or at risk of poverty or social exclusion; stresses that, in the context of the war in Ukraine, tackling child poverty will become even more important in the coming years; welcomes, in this regard, the creation of the European Child Guarantee in order to help ensure that every child in Europe at risk of poverty or social exclusion has free and effective access to the most basic set of rights such as high quality healthcare, early childhood education and care and education, adequate nutrition and decent housing; asks the Commission to provide an analysis on the contribution of the each national operational programme to the European Child Guarantee; calls on ther Member States must allocate an appropriate amount of their ESF+ resources to targeted actions to combat child poverty and support the implementation of the Child Guarantee; Commission and the Member States to focus their efforts on the implementation of the European Child Guarantee towards ensuring access to free quality services for children fleeing Ukraine on an equal footing with their EU national peers in the hosting countries and to urgently increase the funding of the European Child Guarantee with a dedicated budget of at least EUR 20 billion; calls in this regard on all Member States, not only those most affected by the child poverty, to allocate at least 5 % of the ESF+ resources under shared management to support activities under the European Child Guarantee; moreover calls on the Commission to make available and on the Member States to make full use of all available resources for the effective implementation of the Child Guarantee including the ESF+, ReactEU, RRF, etc.; furthermore, calls on the Member States to neutralise all national expenditures dedicated to the eradication of child poverty within the implementation of fiscal rules;
Amendment 50 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6a. Warns of the impact of the ongoing war on global food supply chains and food prices, and the consequences for the purchasing power; in light of the increase of food prices, highlights the adopted increased minimum allocation towards social inclusion measures in the new ESF+ as well the 3 % on top of those for measures within FEAD and encourages Member States to allocate more than the minimum amounts required in line with ESF+;
Amendment 51 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 b (new)
Paragraph 6 b (new)
Amendment 52 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 c (new)
Paragraph 6 c (new)
6c. Reiterates that women are more widely affected by the current crises and war in Ukraine and are more at risk of suffering the employment and social fallout; stresses that employment headline target adopted in Porto can only be achieved by adopting ambitious targets at national level to include women in the labour market, including refugees, by creating incentives, infrastructures and removing barriers and discriminations; calls for a mainstreaming of gender responsive budget to better align policies and activities that promote the equal participation of women in the labour market and to have comprehensive systems to monitor and measure gender budget allocations, women participation in the labour market, access to employment, pay and pension gaps;
Amendment 57 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Recalls that the JTF provides support for territories and people facing socio-economic and employment challenges deriving from the transition process towards a climate neutral economy of the Union by 2050; takes note of the Commission appropriations in 2023 of EUR 1,4662 billion; highlights its importance for addressing the social aspects of the transition, in particular support to jobseekers, including job search assistance, upskilling and reskilling and their active inclusion into the labour market as well as investments in smart and sustainable mobility, other activities in the areas of education and social inclusion, including investments in social infrastructure for the purposes of training centres, child- and elderly-care facilities and the possibility to support investments in large enterprises in ’assisted areas’ pursuant to regional State aid guidelines, if such support is necessary for job creation in the identified territory;
Amendment 61 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Recalls that pilot projects (PPs) and preparatory actions (PAs) are essential to test new policy initiatives in the fields of employment and social inclusion, including through data collection; recalls that their assessment is anchored in the Interinstitutional agreement and trustsrepeats its call on the Commission to evaluate PP/-PA proposals impartially on the basis of a legal and financial assessment, so that the grades reflect the merit of the proposals; expectsresses its disappointment over the poor and unclear assessment of the proposals for the budget 2023 and asks the Commission to receive precise and detailed explanations of these assessments, together with concrete examples of the EUnion actions that are considered to ‘cover’ the proposals; also recalls that the implementation of an adopted PP/PA must remain faithful to the adopted proposal;
Amendment 63 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Recalls that the Union agencies play an important role in providing Union institutions and countries with specialised knowledge notably on employment and social issues and that they must be given the necessary resources to fulfil their tasks which are evolving; takes notes that the estimates for agencies 2023 are in line with the budget programming and that an additional EUR 649 592,00 are planned for Eurofound to help it cope; welcomes that the steep increase in the Irish coefficient corrector for Eurofound is at least partly compensated; recalls the need to ensure an adequate allocation of funds for the European Labour Authority, which is crucial to ensure stability and full delivery of its mandate, including by providing appropriate staffing and to attract the best qualified candidates for the posts, as well as to transform the SNEs posts, which currently represent almost half of the staff of ELA to permanent temporary agents posts without increasing the total number of posts in order to improve the attractiveness of the working conditions and ensure the fair labour mobility within the sharp increase in the coefficient corrector in Ireland; Union; recognises that ELA should have the necessary resources to support and strengthen the capacity of national labour inspectorates and authorities, as well as social partners, in order to contribute to fair labour mobility and tackle cross-border fraud and abuses; stresses that ELA should ensure a proper social partner involvement, including procedures for social partners to submit cases to ELA and assurances for their effective follow-up;
Amendment 65 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 11 a (new)
Paragraph 11 a (new)
11a. Regrets the decrease in the allocation for the Budget line 07 20 04 06 (Specific competences in the area of social policy, including social dialogue); recalls that strong social dialogue is a key feature of the European Social model and the commitment of the European Union to promote the role of social partners and to facilitate social dialogue, in line with Article 152 TFEU; stresses the need to ensure adequate support for social dialogue and to develop and improve the capacity of social partners and to increase the allocation for this budget line, as well as to guarantee adequate support for information and training measures for workers’ organisations, taking also into account the impact of inflation on staff expenditure in the budgets of the trade union institutes;
Amendment 70 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Recalls the importance of budgetary accountability and prioritisation; underlines that the flexibility available under the current 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework (MFF) is not sufficient to fully cover the financial needs generated by the war in Ukraine and the COVID pandemic; recalls that these instruments were neither designed nor conceived in terms of size to address the new challenges and future crisis situations while simultaneously maintain investments in the EU’s programmes and policies, including important priorities like the just, green and digital transitions; stresses the importance of increased flexibility and sufficient resources to respond to major crises and their social and labour market implications, while recalling that inflation puts a great pressure on the ceilings in the MFF leaving no margins available to tackle the biggest challenges in the annual budgetary procedure;, calls on the Commission to conduct an in-depth analysis of the different implications of the current challenges on the whole MFF 2021-2027, with a view to carrying outand to carry out an urgent and comprehensive revision of the current MFF as soon as possible and no later than the first quarter of 2023 in order to provide additional flexibility needs in the EU budget, including the full use of decommitments, to respond to unforeseen and urgent revision of the current MFF.needs; expects such a vision to take into account the long-term implications of the war in Ukraine and the emergency measures taken;