"Naive" poverty report urges Europe-wide legal minimum income
Posted, November 15, 2011 @ 15:00
The European Parliament today approved plans to investigate a legally-enforceable Europe-wide minimum income - and to classify poverty as a violation of human rights.
In a move described as "well-meaning but naive", a motion proposed by Belgian MEP Frederic Daerden was voted through by the Strasbourg plenary sitting with the support of Socialist and Liberal MEPs.
Conservative MEPs, who voted against, reacted angrily to the motion, which also aims to create a series of "poverty awareness seminars" across Europe.
The Daerden motion declares in its preamble: "Poverty can be classed as a violation of human rights."
It goes on to demand the creation by the EU of a regular, critical evaluation-mechanism to judge each member state's "progress in reducing poverty and social exclusion", and an annual report to be compiled on how Britain and other countries measure up.
Where it is perceived too little is being done, the European Commission should hand national governments "country-specific" action plans, the motion stipulates.
It "deplores" Commission proposals to reduce EU spending next year on food parcels for the poor, although the bill would still come to €113.5 million, and it calls for extra spending on state benefits across Europe for people with long-term illness or disability, for single parents and for families with many children.
In addition, the motion calls for a convention on poverty and social exclusion, lasting at least a week, to take place every year in different venues across Europe.
Julie Girling, Conservative spokesman on employment and social affairs, said: "You can't create prosperity by wishful thinking.
"Nobody denies that poverty is a real and pressing problem. But poverty has nothing to do with human rights and everything to do with lack of opportunity and incentive to work productively.
"These are the factors we must target. That is how wealth is created across society, and how the disadvantaged can best be lifted out of poverty.
"Not by a Brussels diktat declaring some arbitrary minimum income, or by making benefits-dependency an attractive alternative to work.
"This motion not only interferes with matters that should be tackled at national level - and are being - but puts forward proposals which would actually make nations poorer, not better-off.
"To think otherwise is well-meaning but naive."