PES launches new Lisbon Network under leadership of Hans Eichel

6 July 2006

Former German Finance Minister Hans Eichel today relaunches the Party of European Socialists work on the EU’s Lisbon Strategy aimed at making Europe more economically competitive. 

Top of the agenda for the first meeting today in Helsinki of the relaunched PES Lisbon Network – consisting of  PES Employment and Social Affairs Ministers and each PES Government’s  “Mr or Mrs Lisbon” (the person appointed by each Government to participate in the Lisbon process) – is the Nordic inspired reform known as “flexicurity” which combines increased flexibility with more security. 

The PES Lisbon Network will agree a joint contribution to the European Union’s work on common principles of flexicurity – with the  aim of influencing first the Social Summit on flexicurity to be held by the Finnish Presidency in October and then the European Commission’s own draft principles of flexicurity which were requested by the last EU Spring Summit.

“The PES is relaunching its Lisbon Network because with the right policies Europe can create new jobs and accelerate economic growth” said Hans Eichel. “The Lisbon strategy is at the core of the PES priorities.”

A joint article published yesterday in Finnish Social Democratic newspaper Uutispäivä Demari PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, Finnish Employment Minister Tarja Filatov, Portuguese Employment Minister José Vieira da Silva and Hans Eichel state “Flexicurity is essential to achieve what Europe needs most: to get more people into work and to raise productivity. If developed in the right way, it could offer the people of Europe a new and positive direction for modernising our economies and social protection systems.” 

The article goes on to explain “flexicurity cannot be an excuse just to make it easier to hire and fire people. It is a coherent approach based on rights as well as duties. It means investing in better child care, more education and training, better income support between jobs, a better balance between professional and personal needs.“

For more information: Julian Scola, Press Officer, Party of European Socialists, , tel 00 32 2 548 9080