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RECOMMENDATIONS
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– The European Semester reports must be modified to include social
indicators, with the aim of implementing counter-cyclical policies to
generate economic activity and to fund active employment policies.
Such policies have suffered from funding cuts since 2008, despite the
increase in unemployment as a result of austerity policies.
– European economic and monetary union should be complemented by
the formal launch of a European employment policy, one that would
not only generate jobs and promote investment but would also include
other measures such as the creation of a European element of national
unemployment benefits, helping those countries hardest hit by the
crisis to retrain their unemployed people, a strengthening of the European
Social Fund (ESF) for the long-term unemployed, and the creation of a
European minimum wage framework, taking into account the cost of
living and average salary in each member state to guarantee all workers
a living wage.
4. Protection of refugees
– Solidarity should be strengthened in this field, with the creation of a
European Fund to support refugees.
– Legal access routes should be expanded: humanitarian welcome
programmes, humanitarian visas and temporary protection schemes
must be accompanied by normal mobility mechanisms such as reuniting
families, employment mobility and mobility for students, along with
evacuation procedures for medical reasons. At the same time, these
measures must be designed in ways that prevent their manipulation by
people traffickers, and must include safeguards against exploitation in
recipient countries.
– Within the EU, a thorough-going revision of the directives and
regulations of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) still needs
to be negotiated. Faced with a high volume of refugees, the Dublin
system has been found wanting and has failed to ensure that EU
member states comply with their responsibility to protect refugees.
Despite this failure, current plans for Dublin IV retain the existing
principle that asylum seekers must be accommodated by the country
of first arrival. The European Parliament and the Council still have the
option of aligning cooperation between countries of arrival and transit,
controlling external borders, and rules within the European Union,
based on the consistent evaluation and monitoring of human rights.