Spaans voorzitterschap wil strategie voor 2020 inrichten, met veel aandacht voor positie vrouwen (en)

The Spanish Minister for Employment and Immigration, Celestino Corbacho.

The Spanish Presidency of the EU is to focus its objectives and actions on economic recovery, employment generation and social protection, according to Spain's Ministers for Employment and Immigration, Celestino Corbacho; Health and Social Policy, Trinidad Jiménez, and Equality, Bibiana Aído, who appeared before the European Parliament's Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.

During their joint presentation today, the Spanish ministers stressed the importance of the 2020 Strategy, which must devise a new European economic and social model in the current environment of economic crisis and institutional change resulting from the Treaty of Lisbon coming into force.

Celestino Corbacho highlighted the need to “build an instrument that will allow for a co-ordinated response” to help the EU emerge from the crisis, which “must undoubtedly be our strategy for 2020”. This must include short term measures to improve the employment situation, as well as others over the medium and long term to make the EU more competitive within a globalised economy, he added.

The minister said it was important to “maintain public stimulus plans throughout the EU as a whole”, as well as “definitively promoting the co-ordination between European institutions, Member States and social partners” in order to help employment recover. He said that social dialogue would be "defended and promoted" at EU level during the term of the Spanish Presidency.

He added that labour market reform, based on the principle of flexisecurity, was also needed. The strategy must also include improving workers' training and qualifications; measures to boost employment among young people, such as micro-loans for small and medium-sized enterprises, and the promotion of new sources of employment linked to the environment, social care and information technologies.

Ms Jiménez said that the elderly, disabled and ethnic minorities at greatest risk of social exclusion would be priority groups during the Spanish Presidency. She added that the crisis “means the agenda for strengthening social cohesion must take centre stage” and that the recently-launched European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion would fortify the Spanish Presidency.

Jiménez said the general lines of the social policy, based on the “principles of solidarity, responsibility and joint action”, had been jointly developed with Belgium and Hungary, which make up the Trio of Presidencies with Spain.

Bibiana Aído, meanwhile, said that one of the priorities of the Spanish Presidency would be to ensure that gender equality was incorporated as one of the principles of Europe's 2020 Strategy, along with the fight against sexist violence and discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, disability or ethnic background.

Aído said gender equality was not only a fundamental right, but also a question of social sustainability and “effective resource management”. The minister said it was “inefficient not to make the most of women's potential”, because this is “waste that we cannot afford”.

Although 59% of all Europe's graduates are women, only 3% of them occupy management posts in public listed companies, the minister said. This is why the 2020 Strategy must strive to bring about “the changes needed to make sure that women and men are equally represented in the public and private worlds”, as well as ensuring a better balance between work and family life.

Aído said the Spanish Government fully supports the proposed maternity directive, aimed at protecting the rights of pregnant workers, and which the European Parliament is due to give its opinion on shortly.

In terms of the salary divide, the minister proposed that Member States should set up control mechanisms, such as company inspections.

She added that the Spanish Government is working on developing a European Protection Order, which would give protection to female victims of violence throughout the EU, as well as setting up a single, free helpline number.