Declared Carl Cederschiöld, the new President of CEEP, during the meeting of the European social partners with the college of Commissioners on the financial and economic crisis held on the 25 February.
“It’s a real challenge to take over the leadership of the European public employers’ and SGI’s providers’ organisation during these difficult times. Public service providers must indeed perform a double task today:
· to face the economic crisis
· while preserving the accessibility, the high quality, the affordability and the continuity
of services of general interest.”
“Best services for citizen’s money must remain our guiding principle and value, no matter the
economic background.” Mr Cederschiöld further stated that “Recovery measures should rely more on investment in infrastructures, whether physical (transport, energy, network industries) or social (education, healthcare, social services). For this type of action the concept of a European infrastructure fund must be re-launched. It would best combine an immediate impact on income and
employment with longer term growth.”
Carl Cederschiöld ended his speech with a call for the concrete acknowledgement that “markets are made up of two kinds of “capital”: One is Money, the other is Trust of citizens and consumers. To reach the latter, framing conditions such as functioning administrations, reliable and sustainable services of general interest, are key to make market players able to overcome the crisis. “
For further information, please contact:
Inge REICHERT, Director of CEEP - tel. +32 (0) 2 219 27 98
CEEP gathers enterprises and organisations from across Europe, both public and private, at national, regional and local level, which are public employers or providers of services of general interest. CEEP members employ a quarter of the EU
workforce; CEEP is one of the three European Social Partners.