Activities of Gabriele ZIMMER 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 (18)
Amendment 15 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 22 a (new)
Citation 22 a (new)
- Having regard to its resolution of 16 January 2014 on an EU Homelessness Strategy;
Amendment 34 #
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; whereas it nevertheless remains too high, currently affecting 9.9 % of active citizremains too high, currently affecting 9.9 % of active citizens, i.e. 23 million Europeans, about half of them being long-term unemployed; whereas unemployment has been diminishing since 2013 only gradually due to the persisting macroeconomic austerity regimes and structural reforms in many Member States that hamper large-scale public investmenst, i.e. 23 million Europeans, about half of them being long-term unemployedweaken social dialogue, destabilise labour markets, dismantle social security and perpetuate social exclusion;
Amendment 65 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas many Member States cut funding in the education sector, hampering quality education, putting pressure on pay and working conditions of teachers, and increasing precarious contractual arrangements for teachers and employees in the education sectors; whereas about 20 % of active citizens in the EU have only basic skills while 39 % of companies have difficulty finding staff with the required skills, whereas low educational level is one ofand a lack of comprehensive social inclusion measures are the key causes of young people becoming NEETs;
Amendment 73 #
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 foundare continuously increasing, especially in Member States that implemented labour market reforms with a negative effect on worker's rights; whereas contracts of this nature apply, albeit such contracts account for a minority of existing employment relationshipsre one of the root causes of precarious work, as they are often fix-termed and occur with no sufficient protection against dismissal, a lack of social security, insufficient contributions to pension schemes, and the absence of works council and trade union representation;
Amendment 93 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F
Recital F
F. whereas - although 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 - poverty rates in the EU have increased even further and are at an unacceptably high level; whereas 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; whereas homelessness is increasing in a majority of Member States;
Amendment 129 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 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,; Deplores that the addinged three social indicators (activity rate, youth unemployment and long-term unemployment) in the 2016 Alert Mechanism Report have no triggering effect and therefore are at risk of not preventing the further dismantling of social standards; calls for the inclusion of social indicators that trigger concrete measures for inclusive growth and the eradication of poverty; stresses that the need to invest in social development is not just a means of guaranteeing that economic growth and convergence can be achieved, but must also be a specific target in itself;
Amendment 154 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Calls on the Commission to fospromoter, at Member State level, a broader investment strategy for the full cycle of education and training, encompassing all sectors of lifelong learning, work-based and workplace learning, formal and non- formal learning, and to foster forms of cooperation involving governments, enterprises, educational institutions and social partners, with a view to adapcreating Member States’inclusive education and training systems to the needs offor a successful access to the labour market;
Amendment 172 #
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 social support services; emphasises the need to ensure that the Youth Guarantees reaches young people facing multiple exclusions and extreme poverty;
Amendment 191 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7 a. Emphasises the urgent need to ensure that the EU's efforts to fight poverty and social exclusion are at the core of its growth strategy; calls on the Commission and Member States to 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 nevertheless represent an alarming social reality, affecting at least 4 million people every year; is concerned by the fact that 22,348,834 households, or 11% of the population, in the EU are facing housing cost overburden and a further 10.5 million households suffer severe housing deprivation;
Amendment 204 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Notes that the EU continues to suffer from structural social problems that need to be addressed urgently, pointing up the need to continue prioritising investment, structural reformsprioritise large-scale public investment, socially progressive reforms (like the invention of an EU target for minimum wages to provide for a remuneration of at least 60 % of the respective national average wage, accompanied by an EU target for minimum income schemes providing income support of at least 60 % of national median equalised income), and responsible fiscal consolidation, thus reinforcing a favourable economic environment for business with a view tothe creatingon of more quality jobs while re-balancing the social and economic dimensions; stresses that those priorities will only be achieved if investment in human capital is prioritised as a common strategy;
Amendment 229 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Considering that flexicurity contributes to avoidingObjects to the Commission's attempt to re-introduce the failed flexicurity concept, as more flexibility led to more labour market fragmentation and promoting the creation of more quality jobs, more precarious work and a re-commodification of labour, permanent uncertainty for employees, psychological stress, and the hampering of a stable life planning and a decent family life; calls on the Member States to modernise their employment protection legislation in order to guarantee more stability inhigh quality jobs with dismissal protection, high quality public services for the transitions between jobs, as well as employees’' access to high standards of social security and welfare rights; calls on the Commission to step up monitoring of the abusive practice of successive fixed- term contracts, in both private and public sectors;
Amendment 247 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Calls on the Member States to gradually shift taxes from labour to other sourcesand consumption to capital and property, and to implement 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 262 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Calls on the Member States to modernise their current 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 aa holistic approach for a new inclusive, demand driven growth model, including: - income support sufficient to avoid social exclusion and income poverty; - inclusive labour markets with comprehensive support for disadvantaged groups; - better access to quality services, especially for the most disadvantaged (like the rising number of homeless people in the EU, Roma, single-parent households, elderly, NEETs, and refugees); - strategies to end homelessness; - strategies to end child poverty; - gender mainstreaming, - anti-discrimination and active participation of those people affected in policy design; considers that pension schemes should be linked to various economic, social and labour factors, such as the consideration of long-term effects of different job profiles on the physical and mental health of employees, life expectancy, future productivity growth, decent wage levelso to other social and labour factors, while not jeopardisinghat allow contributions to pension schemes allowing a decent revenue when employees reach pension age, and immigration policies with a focus on fast social and economic integration measures, in order to stabilise the sustainability of public finances;
Amendment 269 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Calls on the Member States to examine the persistrengthen efforts to eradicate the gender pay gap and to take more active measures to strence of low fertility rates in the EUgthen women's participation in the labour market, such as investment in child and elderly care, adequate maternity and paternity leave provisions and the access to social services; cCalls on the Commission and the Member States to promote family-friendly policies that enhance parents’' capacity to ensure their children’'s wellbeing; encourages the Member States to consider applying more favourable fiscal differentiation in line with the number of children in a family;
Amendment 364 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 27
Paragraph 27
27. Calls on the Member States to implement and monitor more efficientinclusive forms of social protection systems and income support, in order to ensure that these systems offer a minimumdecent standard of living for the unemployed and those at risk of social exclusion, while guaranteeing that such mechanisms do not perpetuate social dependency and constitute an incentive to education ordevelop integrated strategies to tackle homelessness and housing exclusion, while guaranteeing that such mechanisms provide access to education and training and opportunities to entering the joblabour market;
Amendment 373 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28
Paragraph 28
28. Calls on theall Member States to agree on a common policy for the welcoming of refugees and to implement the necessary national measures for their inclusion of refugees; stresses that such an approach will require the allocation of funds that, in so fragile a situation, cannot be provided solely by Member States; calls on the Commission to provide the funding required to develop such a strategy as part of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF); calls on the Commission and the Member States to invite the social partners to play a key role in the common task of integrating migrants and refugees into the labour market, to cut the waiting period before asylum seekers are allowed to work to a minimum, to develop mechanisms for the fast recognition of skills and competences, to introduce labour market policies that offer language courses, training and consultation, to develop a framework to guarantee decent work and equal treatment, and to prevent a drift of immigrants and refugees into undeclared work;
Amendment 388 #
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 fairrights-based, socially secure and voluntary labour mobility, ensuring that EU mobile workers are not treated abusively; calls, therefore, for a full implementation of the principle of equal pay for equal work (and work of equal value) at the same work place, and for respect for collective agreements; rejects any attempt of Member State governments or the Commission to discriminate workers from EU or third countries by excluding them from in-work benefits; rejects any attempt to revise the regulations 883/2004 and 987/2009 in a way that reduces access of EU and EFTA citizens to social benefits;
Amendment 405 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31 a (new)
Paragraph 31 a (new)
31 a. Rejects the establishment of National Competitiveness Boards as new bureaucratic institutions to interfere in collective bargaining at national level;