03/12/2008
Europe should not let employment levels go down
3 December 2008
Europe will have 25 million unemployed in 2010 unless Europe acts ambitiously, PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen warned Commission President Barroso today in the European Parliament.
The PES President, returning from Madrid where PES leaders made a statement calling for an ambitious recovery plan to be adopted by the EU at its December Summit, told the Parliament that the European Commission’s proposed recovery plan lacked ambition. Rasmussen said to President Barroso and the MEPs in the chamber that Europe should set a goal of not allowing employment levels to go down, and that this goal should define the fiscal stimulus.
Commenting on the Commission’s recovery plan Rasmussen told Barroso “what I miss is the ambition and true coordination.”
He urged the Commission President to make a scenario for the Heads of Government and State to show them the spill-over benefits of a substantial and coordinated stimulus, and to draw up a timeline and a list of priorities for coordinated investments.
Rasmussen said “we need to invest 1 percent of GDP not only next year but in 2010 and 2011.”
PES leaders meeting in Madrid earlier this week also adopted the PES manifesto for the 2009 European elections including a proposal for a European smart green growth strategy to create 10 million new jobs by 2020.
Read the PES leaders recovery plan statement
Read the PES manifesto “People first: A new direction for Europe” 
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Julian Scola, Communications Advisor - Media & Campaigns
Party of European Socialists, Rue du Trône, 98, B-1050 Brussels
Mobile +32 486 117 394
julian.scola@pes.org
