Brussels, 03-04/12/2013

Brussels, 07/11/2013 Annexes available in the PDF version Introduction

Helsinki, 31/10/2013 [Check against delivery] Mrs Minister, Dear Mikko, dear Ninna, Dear colleagues and friends,

Brussels, 17/05/2013 As the European Parliament is due to vote on 22 May on the report on Fight against Tax Fraud, Tax Evasion and Tax Havens by MEP Kleva Kekuš (SL, S&D), European trade unions encourage all MEPs to support it. The draft report proposes concrete steps towards banning all tax havens and forcing transnational companies to pay their fair share of taxes on the huge profits they make. If adopted, it will send strong signals to the EU Summit on 22 May.

Brussels, 23/04/2013

Konventum, Helsingor, Denmark, 07/06/2010 Last time, I came to a SAMAK event, it was in Oslo and the hot topic was a self critical examination of whether Nordic countries could have done more to handle the effects of the Asian tsunami which killed thousands, including hundreds of Scandinavians.

Warsaw, 28/05/2010 President, delegates and fellow guests, thank you for this invitation to address your Congress once again. I came to a previous one and, since then, it has been a roller coaster for Poland, and for Europe – a period of breakneck growth followed by a crash, not so bad here as in most other EU countries but unemployment at 12,3% (from 10,9% a year ago) and high poverty is a distressing situation for the country’s workers.

Athens, 05/05/2010 I bring greetings and messages of solidarity from the 80 affiliates and 60 million members of the European Trade Union Confederation. Everyone in the ETUC knows the seriousness of the situation. Everyone appreciates that things must change. But everyone too knows that the response of the EU so far to the Greek crisis has been hesitant, clumsy, and now positively dangerous, not just to Greece but to Europe.

Athens, 24/02/2010 “Panta rhei” – everything flows – said Heraclitus. Abraham Lincoln once sent a message to the cotton workers of Manchester, who were unemployed because of their support for the blockade of Southern American posts in the war against slavery. Lincoln memorably said “The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues.”

Madrid, 21/01/2010 I congratulate the Spanish Presidency on this initiative. In all our societies the gaps between rich and poor have been widening. Income inequalities are back to late 19th century levels in some countries. Other participants have rightly focused on the need for positive action to help the excluded – training, social security, minimum wages, etc to help them progress. I agree with the importance of those at European and national level.

Paris, 07/01/2010 Have we managed the crisis well? The best that can be said is that we have managed the crisis better than they did in the 1930s. This time governments did not cut spending as tax revenues plummeted. This time, at least in the EU, we have had welfare states to provide social security and some active labour market policies instead of the mass poverty and unemployment of the 1930s.

Brussels, 10/11/2009 Thank you, Chairman for this invitation and opportunity to comment on the causes of this crisis and the challenges for the EU. The ETUC’s position can be summarised as follows:

Brussels, 8 April 2008 To be checked against delivery An ageing population, shifts in risk from employers to workers as jobs and pensions become less secure, the promotion of flexicurity and its key feature of slotting people into new jobs quickly as old ones disappear, the need for affordable child care, these are all factors which points inexorably to higher tax levels rather than lower ones.

Budva, 30/10/2007 To be checked against delivery Thank you for the opportunity to express a trade union perspective on all this. Let me start by expressing the appreciation of the ETUC to those who have made all this possible. To the Belgian and Swiss Governments whose commitment and far sighted support has been crucial; and to our hosts, the Republic of Montenegro.

Brussels, May 2005

Brussels, 17-18 March 2004