International

It was all over Dutch television this weekend: more and more people are demanding a social agenda for Europe. Clearly a social agenda is needed, as is demonstrated by figures published this week by the European Commission which show that within the EU one in every four young people is unemployed, while one in four people is at best in danger of falling into poverty, or is already living in poverty. This can’t continue. But Eurocrats would not be Eurocrats if they didn’t immediately deduce from this that Brussels must have more power. One of the TV discussions centred on contracts between the member states and the European Commission regarding social reforms, in exchange for which countries would receive more money. If that’s Europe’s social agenda, we’d better be on our guard. A social agenda could also, however, consist of less austerity fetishism and more giving priority to social rights. That seems to me a much better way out of the crisis and out of the catastrophe that is hitting more and more ordinary people in Europe.

This week Laszlo Andor, European Commissioner for Social Affairs and Employment, sounded the alarm. Not surprisingly, as the statistics are alarming. In the EU the unemployment rate has reached 10.4%, a rise of 0.9 percentage points since 2011. In the eurozone the figure is even higher at 11.6%. What this means is that more than one in every nine people in the potential workforce is without a job. Amongst people between the ages of fifteen and twenty four the rate is as high as 22.8%. An entire generation is threatened by exclusion from the labour market and the loss of any future. The growth of poverty is equally spectacular, with one in four menaced by poverty. Work is no guarantee that you won’t find yourself poor, with one in twelve employed people living below the poverty line. This confirms the SP’s long-held view that new jobs often don’t provide a living wage.

Within the European Commissioner, Andor’s is hardly a powerful voice. He isn’t listened to in the same way as is, for example ‘Supercommissioner’ (and Super-budget fetishist) Olli Rehn. But he had nevertheless received the approval of the Commission as a whole to publish his report. This is cause for hope. If even in the bulwark of neoliberalism the idea that we cannot continue in this way is gaining ground, there is hope of change.

We must take Commissioner Andor’s report seriously. Discussion of a stimulation policy for countries in Europe that are doing relatively well, such as Germany and the Netherlands, is urgently needed. If we were to stimulate stronger economies, restore consumer confidence and ensure public investment, which would for example put the building sector back on its feet, then other countries will profit from this via the internal market and we will be on the right path. If we in Europe as a whole can lay the emphasis on good education and research without insurmountable financial barriers to aspiring students then the same applies. What is also demonstrated by Andor’s report is that if we see social provision not as a luxury but as a necessity for a humane Europe and a shock-resistant economy, we will again be moving along the right lines. That demands a complete reversal of the current policies of the European Commission and leaders of member state governments who continue to stick strictly to the 3% norm. As for contracts between the member states and the European Commission, in my view these are unnecessary, and we would be better not creating new levels of Eurocracy. Economic governance must indeed be reformed. In addition to budgetary goals we should be establishing goals for employment and for the fight against poverty, and these should be more than vague criteria, but rather definite, statistically measurable objectives. Respect for social rights and priority for employment and anti-poverty measures: that would be a social agenda in which the SP could see some worth.