Traduction de «Ministère de la prévoyance sociale » (Français → Anglais) :

The approach adopted by the Member States varies widely depending on the initial situations, the welfare regime and the experience of developing anti-poverty strategies.

Properly functioning health services, both public and private, are part of the welfare society – the European welfare society.

The calls for pension reform are repeated year after year, month after month, but no action is taken in the Member States: do you not think that it is necessary for the Commission to make more specific statements, giving more specific figures and requiring more specific undertakings, not least in order to inform the public of what is happening, of the risks we are running in the area of pensions and the risks we are continuing to hand on to the new generations?

The Commission is unfamiliar with the issue of discrimination against visually handicapped people travelling with their guide dogs in Portugal, and therefore asked the competent Portuguese Ministry (Ministry of Social Affairs) to clarify this point and provide details of legislation on the subject.

12. Notes nevertheless the high level of popular disillusionment, as demonstrated in the elections of 17 June 2001, in the ability of government and the administration to translate macroeconomic and financial stability into higher standards of living, improvement of social services and social protection, and lower unemployment; considers that, to this end, it is necessary to significantly reinforce government measures to promote equality, to combat unemployment, to establish higher levels of social benefits and cover, and to tackle the problems of poverty and marginalisation; stresses, in this context, the need to strengthen the role o ...[+++]f social dialogue in economic and social policy-making;

Well, if we are going to talk about practical things to be done and not just high-flown goals, Parliament should make its voice heard in a much stronger, more decisive, more rigorous way, and call urgently for a reform which leads to financially sustainable social security systems which are less unfair in terms of balance between the generations.