Anti-Poverty Year: unions play an active roleThe European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) “will play an active role” in the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. The organization, which represents most of the individual trade unions in the continent, will promote during the year a series of initiatives of study, awareness raising and mobilization “because poverty and social exclusion are still rooted in the EU”, while the recession has had particularly harsh repercussions on the situation of the most disadvantaged categories of workers. “The Lisbon Strategy has failed in its bid to eradicate poverty”, says a document put out by ETUC. “Tackling poverty is not just about providing remedies, but also involves working upstream to strengthen and improve social protection systems”. The European trade unions, led by the English John Monks, also insist on the urgent need to create jobs and “ensure a decent wage for everyone, whatever the individual’s social, professional or personal situation”. A specific reflection is reserved for the need to provide “social and health services accessible to everyone”. The European Trade Union Confederation will supplement the mobilization in the framework of the Year of Combating Poverty with a particular mobilization of its own in 2010, for the defence of employment.Frontex: security and the fight against people traffickingThe control of immigration through the Frontex Agency “has so far suffered from the lack of resources and inadequate coordination between the national authorities”. The European Commission, starting out from this basic proposition, presented earlier this week a proposal aimed at boosting Frontex, the EU agency, based in Warsaw, whose job it is to control the Union’s external frontiers. “The objective is to reinforce the legal framework to ensure full respect for fundamental rights during the activity of Frontex and improve the Agency’s operational capacity in supporting member states”. The beefing up of the Agency forms part of the Stockholm Programme (security, justice and internal affairs), approved by the European Council in December. In practice Frontex coordinates cooperation between national frontier patrols, provides training for border guards, acts as a central database for data on surveillance coming from the member states and assists the States in joint operations of repatriation. The Commission proposes (the decision is now jointly up to Parliament and Council) that the member states should place “more equipment and personnel” at the disposal of the Agency; Frontex ought in future “to direct frontier patrol operations together with the countries of the Union”. Cecilia Malmstrom, Commissioner for Internal Affairs, declares: “The proposal paves the way for greater solidarity and cooperation between EU countries. We could in this way better tackle the problems of irregular immigration and the trafficking of human beings, while reinforcing the guarantees for full respect of fundamental rights”. Frontex, established in 2005, has a staff of 220 persons and annually receives an appropriation of 80 million euros from the EU budget. Iceland’s bid to join the EU: positive opinion of the Commission”Iceland subscribes to the common values of the EU, such as democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights”. The Commission thus expressed its opinion – as requested by the Council in July last year after the government of Reykjavík had formally presented its membership application – on the question of the island’s possible membership of the EU. The go ahead to membership negotiations however must come from the Council itself. EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule declared: “This opinion is an important step in the membership process and furnishes Iceland with guidelines on what efforts it has to make to become a member of the Union”. “I am confident – added Fule – that Iceland will show determination in addressing the challenges highlighted in the opinion”. To become a member of the EU a country needs to demonstrate its respect for the economic and political criteria laid down by the Union itself at Copenhagen in 1993; it must also incorporate into its own legal system the whole corpus of Community law (acquis). Iceland’s bid to become a member of the EU was interpreted in Brussels as the Icelandic government’s full conviction that the EU represents a vital support for the economic and financial stabilization of the island: Iceland indeed is one of the countries that have most painfully felt the cost of the recession and the turmoil of the financial markets. Jerzy Buzek, President of the European Parliament, also intervened on the question during the plenary session on 24-25 February, explaining: “The ideals of the Community are reaching the remotest corners of the continent and are inspiring hope, confidence in the future and solidarity”. Buzek considers it positive that “one of the most ancient parliamentary democracies in the world may find a place in the EU family”.
