Europe re-thinking "welfare"” “

The welfare State is a heritage of the whole of Europe, albeit in the various forms it has assumed in the various countries in the course of time. This heritage needs to be defended and promoted, if necessary “remodelled” to respond to the new needs and the available resources. This, in brief, is the “message to Europe” launched by the seminar of ACLI (Christian Associations of Italian Workers) held in Vallombrosa (near Florence) from 6 to 8 September. The aim of the meeting was to reflect on the “welfare of the future. The new frontier of rights in the age of globalization”. In 1999 the countries of the European Union spent 27.5% of their global GDP on social welfare (source: Eurostat). As regards expenditures on the family and children, in the same year, the percentage was equivalent on average to 8.2 % of GDP (3.7 % in Italy, as against 10,% in Germany). In spite of this level of protection, those in risk of poverty in the EU number between 60 andi 80 million people and 21% of juveniles live in low-income families (source: Eurostat, data for 1996). Given this situation, said the president of the European Commission Romano Prodi, intervening in the seminar by teleconference, “social policy cannot be left to the member states alone. It is clear that the decisions remain within the independent domain of the individual states, or even of the Regions, but we are gradually acquiring a reciprocal understanding of our economic systems; we must exchange experiences, guarantee harmonized services to citizens and work for a convergence that may permit our economic systems to be more effective”. In particular, emphasized Prodi, “speaking of welfare also means speaking of education, an aspect that does not seem to me sufficiently addressed in Europe. Guaranteeing welfare in also a problem of human resources”. In this perspective, the EU has defined a “European social model” which was described by the European Commissioner for employment and social affairs, the Greek Anna Diamantopoulou. “The European social model – she told the ACLI seminar – is that of the welfare state that represents one of the mainstays of the European Union. The objectives of our social model are those of solidarity, justice and social cohesion”. Diamantopoulou recalled that the European Council in Lisbon defined as its priority objective the creation of 25 million new jobs in the territory of the EU by 2010. To achieve this and the other goals of social policy defined in Lisbon in 2000 and to respond to the current situation of economic recession – the European Commissioner said – “a policy of cooperation needs to be re-launched; a policy that should be aimed at various objectives: that of helping the 60-80 million citizens at risk of poverty, that of coping with the crisis of pensions, and that of extending cooperation to the healthcare sector”. To achieve these objectives, closer cooperation between the fifteen is needed. But it may also be useful to learn from the experience of some European countries. Luigi Campiglio, professor of Economic Policy at the Catholic University in Milan, in the course of the ACLI seminar, analyzed the effects of various fiscal policies on families and suggested that the German system, and especially the French system, be taken as a model. The fiscal reform proposed by the present Italian government, according to the analyses and simulations presented by Campiglio, would involve “more widespread advantages for higher income brackets”, but would not modify “the initial defect in the policy’s approach, namely that of having chosen the individual and not the family as its basic unit of measurement”. The French model, by contrast, is based on the “family quota”. This, Campiglio explained, “is basically a simple division of the family income by number of members which permits the individual tax-rate applicable to the taxable basis to be identified. This mechanism closely reflects the concept of a dynamic ‘welfare’ in which those really in need are ‘weighted’ and not just ‘counted'”. ACLI President Luigi Bobba, lastly, made an appeal to the Convention for the future of Europe which is preparing a proposed reform of the EU treaties. In the future European Constitution, said Bobba, the social rights ignored by the charter of fundamental rights of the EU adopted in Nice in 2000 will be recognized. In particular “the right to a job and not just the mere right to work; the rights of association, and the role of the religious confessions”. Ignazio Ingrao