Press Release: Standing up to globalisation: Diamantopoulou calls for a new social policy for the new economy

On 5.5.00 the EU Social Affairs Commissioner, Anna Diamantopoulou announced that she would bring forward a New Agenda for Social Policy in June 2000. She was speaking in Lisbon at a major international conference on the subject of globalisation and the future of social policy.

Mrs Diamantopoulou said there was no contradiction between free and open trade around the world and the promotion and strengthening of social and human rights. 'I am committed to ensuring that the EU plays its full part, with the World Trade Organisation, International Labour Organisation and all our partners, in finding the global strategies we need to make and to develop positive linkages between free and open trade and the strengthening of social and human rights'. She went on to stress that in the face of the challenges of globalisation and technological change the EU's economic, employment and social systems must change and develop. 'The Lisbon Summit made clear that if we are to build the world's most dynamic, competitive and inclusive knowledge economy, we must be proactive and face up to change - and we must make use of all our resources. We must raise our employment levels and get rid of the skills gaps, regional gaps, gender gaps, services gaps where we are lagging behind the US . . . . . So the answer is not no social policy but a new social policy. In June I will bring forward the Commission's new social policy agenda - I hope this will be a global model 'A new social policy for the new economy'.

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