By Chris Jones - 27th June 2006
National leaders need to “look further than the end of their noses” if they want the EU to work, Jacques Delors warned on Wednesday.
“Europe’s current crisis is entirely political – it is not social or economic,” he said. “If they had any sense, our leaders would ‘think European’ more often – but not in ideals, we need more concrete examples of what Europe can achieve.”
The former European commission president was in Brussels to discuss the future of EU social policies with other senior centre-left politicians, and was characteristically bold in his suggestions.
An EU-wide minimum wage, a more integrated approach to immigration and an increase in social dialogue were among the proposals he presented to socialist party leaders.
“The idea of a common minimum salary, proportional to each member states’ level of development, should be debated in the context of social dialogue,” he said.
“I am a firm believer in European social dialogue, a process that I launched in 1985. But it seems that some social partners – such as Unice [which represents employers] – are no longer interested in the process.”
“The European institutions must encourage employers to return to the table, to talk about concrete issues such as setting a common minimum salary or strengthening European work councils.”
“As for immigration, we need to think more European. The floods of immigrants arriving in Spain and Italy are not Spanish or Italian problems, they are European ones – and we will need to find a European solution to them.”
The Frenchman had some encouraging words about the current state of the European social model, however.
“There are currently several different social models in place in the EU, but they are converging as a result of reforms.”
“We can now see far greater emphasis on common issues such as lifelong learning and solidarity between generations, and policies in the whole are far more active – following people throughout their working lives, rather than just intervening when they lose their job or have an accident.”
Anna Diamantopolou, the former European social affairs commissioner who was also attending the meeting, stressed that the future of Europe lay in improving the balance between solidarity and competition.
“Europe is not just about business, it is about people – quality of life, job security and other issues that matter to the people who live here.”
“Finding the right balance between solidarity and competition is the key to social cohesion.”
“For example, European countries should not compete with each other, on issues such as tax – competition should be left to companies, within the internal market.”
“What we need is more cooperation and coordination.”
Her thoughts were echoed by Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, former Danish prime minister and president of the Party of European Socialists, which hosted the event.
“We need to work together to make sure we are all moving in the same direction. We are not saying that one social model is better than another – each country’s choices will inevitability be different, but they should be based on the same common principle of social cohesion.”
“We should not make choices that set one member state against another.”
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