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Bauer: Slovakia in Need of Comprehensive Employment Strategy
Friday 19 March 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, March 19 (TASR) - In terms of the EU's new 'Europe 2020' strategy, Slovakia should mainly concentrate on the sphere of employment, especially employment of the young, education and investments in science and research, Slovak MEP Edit Bauer (ethnic-Hungarian SMK) told TASR on Friday.
Bauer was speaking during a seminary for journalists organised by the Information Office of the European Parliament in Slovakia (IKEP), which was dedicated to the future of the European Union after the Lisbon Treaty.
"Education has an extremely serious problem. The class of people who are unemployable is growing in Slovakia as well. This is a very urgent problem, but we aren't dealing with it as seriously as it warrants," she said, adding that one reason lies in the large number of early school-leavers.
"I think that strategic thinking isn't a strong element of Slovak politics," said Bauer, commenting on another source of employment problems that she particularly highlighted in the sphere of investments in science and research. Sometimes we aren't willing to invest small entry costs, and so we lose a lot of money in the end, she stated.
Europe 2020 obliges EU-member states to allocate 3 percent of their GDP on science and research, while Slovakia is hardly investing 0.5 percent at the moment. "Most of the money should be directed towards the sphere of private enterprise," said Bauer.
The MEP several times expressed her hope that Europe 2020 won't end up like its predecessor - the Lisbon Strategy, with commitments that weren't always met. "Politicians often agree on something at the top level, but they quickly forget when they return home," she pointed out.
The Slovak MEP, who is in her second electoral term in the EP, doesn't wear rose-tinted spectacles when looking at the future of the EU. According to her, the EU is falling behind in terms of competitiveness on global markets and is slow in responding to development trends. "If Europe doesn't rally, its future may not be a glorious one. It's a crucial time. It's obvious that mass production is to a mass extent moving away from Europe. This means that only production that is bound to a place will remain here - for example, construction and certain services - and cutting-edge production. It's very difficult already to employ people on a mass scale," she added.
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