Many of you will be aware that the RRF is a tool designed to support member states in their post covid 19 recovery, focusing on digitalization, sustainability and inclusiveness to ensure a more resilient Europe in the coming years.
With the WISE4Challenges project, S-Com wanted to focus on women’s participation to shed light on how this tool can help reduce social inequalities. For this reason, on 8 September we organised an online debate on Recovery and Resilience facilities. This debate was attended by Members of Parliament: Alessandra Moretti, Pina Picierno, Sara Matthieu and Lina Galvez Munoz. Moderating this panel was Rolf Falter from DG Comm of the European Parliament Belgian office who immediately introduced the topic by asking a specific question to the MEPs: are you sure the RRF will reduce the inequalities inside EU member states? And if not, what could be done to change this?
The first to respond was Alessandra Moretti (Italian, S&D) “according to EU guidelines a great part of the funds must be used my Member State for digital transformation and ecological transition, the same guidelines tells that the National Recovery and Resilience plans of each State has to include measures for equal opportunities, inclusive education, fair working conditions adequate social protection and gender equality.” In the past months together with S&D group they have proposed to introduce the obligation, for each member state, of preserving at least 37% of the expenses for gender equality. In Italy there is a specific need to improve the childcare services and adult training in all regions.
The second intervention was made by Pina Picierno, (Italian, S&D) who reinforced the speech already introduced by Alessandra Moretti by emphasising another very important issue for Italy: the territorial gap. “In no other country in Europe, except Germany in the 1990s, there is such a deep gap between different geographical areas of the same country. This is not the time of course to analyse the secular causes of this gap, which have their roots from Italy’s unification, but it suffice to say that the south of Italy has about one third of the total population, 34% to be precise, but it produces a GDP of barely a fifth of the country, about 20%, and consequently records a serious delay in the material and social infrastructures, making it one of the most underdeveloped macro-regions in Europe.” Another huge topic is the rate of unemployed women due to care needs is 35,7% as opposed to the European average is 31,8. This discouraging percentage is partially due to the bad condition of public services for children healthcare in the south of Italy, where is also very difficult to affirm that family care is, in fact, a job. A budget of 4.6 billion has been indicated for the improvement of school infrastructures in the south. As a MEP, her task is to make sure that what is written in the national plan is eventually concretely realized.
The third speaker was Lina Gálvez Muñoz (Spanish, S&D) who briefly introduced the Spanish national plan. The Spanish national plan aims to transform production models with a more digital and green economy by addressing existing social inequalities and combating them also at territorial level. The plan is designed to promote investment and reform, strengthen research and innovation in social and territorial cohesion. The transversal objective of gender equality is a key aspect of the plan, because women are no longer present in the environmental and digital sectors, and Spain wants to push women to enter these sectors. The long-term care system is also very important in this plan, including lessons learned from Covid 19. The S&D group is working in the European Parliament to include social conditionality in economic governance, to integrate social scope into the EU semester, as a tool to monitor social progress and make sure that action included in the plans contributes to social objectives. She believes that the green transition will mean many opportunities for economic transformation and will be a chance for many people to benefit economically, but there is also a risk that this process will increase inequalities, she has put this as a central goal in the parliament.
Sara Matthieu (Belgian, The Green) then began her speech by focusing on the general social aspects of the NRRF. “Member States signed the Porto Declaration in which they committed themselves to developing the social dimension of the single market. (..) 1 European citizen in 5 lives in poverty or at risk of poverty. That is why Member States should be pushed for structural social investments, improving the system of structures, for example.” Some member states have suffered more from the austerity that Europe has imposed in the past: cuts in public health, social benefits, etc. She also believes that making all facilities work can be a turning point for equality. Belgium’s plan includes around €6 billion, was approved by the Commission in June and has put a strong emphasis on green transition and digitalisation, but there is also 26% of resources for social policies. The objectives are to invest in education to strengthen the inclusiveness of the labour market, which at the moment is not very inclusive. For example, there is a need to include people with an immigration background. The government wants to prevent temporary unemployment which was a good solution during the pandemic period to safeguard people’s incomes. She says that they know that weaker social groups will end up in these temporary unemployment schemes, so the Belgian government will provide education, training, etc., such as the reduction of women, young people, people with disabilities, immigrants to support them to enter the labour market. After that, she talks about measures: increasing childcare capacity, strengthen the performance of the education system, especially in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In addition to this, Belgium’s plan includes funds to strengthen health care, as the country, like many others, has been hit hard by the pandemic. To sum up, Mrs Matthieu says that the RRF is an important tool to achieve social reforms and an important step towards a more sustainable and socially just Europe. Regarding her role in parliament, she believes that MEPs should check that each member state follows the rules.
Finally, before concluding the first panel Valentina Zoccali, Secretary General of S-Com explains how the debate on the Recovery and Resilience Facility fits into the Wise4Challenges project. Wise4challenges is a project created by S-Com and in line with the Wise4all campaign that was first launched in 2015 with the aim of promoting women’s participation to help build a just and inclusive society. Active participation is the main aspect of the WISE4Challenges project, which is why the partners represent different networks at local and European level. Starting from the beginning of the project there were 4 working groups on: green deal (led by WEP,BE), education and culture (led by Incoma,SP), health (led by University of Pisa,IT), social rights (led by Libera,IT). The activity on RRF is transversal to these 4 tables and led us to analyse the knowledge and needs of the citizens of Belgium, Spain and Italy. In preparation of the debate the MEPs were interviewed and their interviews can be seen through WISE4All youtube channel, meanwhile a trailer was shown to tell the work done.
