Arguing for the inclusion of fixed poverty reduction targets in the EU2020 Strategy today in the European Parliament, Gabi Zimmer (GUE/NGL, Germany) criticised the sidelining of MEPs in the negotiations on the strategy saying "we are facing the deepest crisis in the history of the EU - but all important decisions are still being taken by the national governments".

"In recent years the Parliament has made many concrete proposals for the new Strategy to combat poverty or to create minimum social standards for all people living in the EU" Zimmer said.

Portugal's Ilda Figueiredo said that with EU2020, the Commission was "asking us to retrace the same path that led to the crisis". "They continue to pave the way for greater concentration of wealth when we must end the Stability and Growth Pact and focus on providing quality public services, workers' rights, social inclusion and fair income distribution. This requires effective economic and social cohesion with a clear reinforcement of the EU budget and state control of key sectors of the economy including the financial sector. It is for these objectives that millions of workers in Greece and elsewhere will commendably continue to fight!"

Cypriot GUE/NGL MEP Kyriacos Triantaphyllides said "the Lisbon Strategy has just been renamed as Europe2020. While over the last ten years of Lisbon objectives we have seen a slide in living standards in Europe, the Commission is not proposing adequate social measures. So what measures is the Commission proposing to face up to the greed of the markets and the attacks on workers? Our view is that the Stability and Growth Pact be replaced by a pact for the achievement of social objectives because the noose on the neck of the people is ever tightening and they are being forced to make extreme sacrifices."

Asserting that the economic situation demanded genuine solidarity, Jacky Hénin (GUE/NGL, France) decried the EU's failure to fulfil the promise of providing shelter from globalisation. "EU Directives have often been ahead of the WTO in pushing openness and the resulting deindustrialization and outsourcing of jobs" he said. "It is urgent to reorient European monetary policy towards real fiscal, social and environmental harmonization, genuine protection for jobs and the taxation of financial flows and high incomes".

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