Private consumption has grown.
Exports and investment have increased.
Unemployment continues to fall and it has gotten closer to pre-crisis levels.
Profits of corporations have increased.
Public deficit and debt levels have been largely brought under control.
Not so the share of the economic cake being enjoyed by the working and middle classes; there the deficit has continued to grow.
In most cases where a national minimum wage exists in Europe, it still falls short of what a living wage should be.
Meanwhile, the divergences between the highest income earners and the lowest have continued to increase.
This is not fair.
At best, Minimum Income schemes play the role of safety nets for the most vulnerable workers and for individuals unable to guarantee an adequate standard of living through their own efforts.
They are hardly doing so.
The time has come however for such schemes to go beyond this minimum.
We need to push for the adoption EU wide of a national minimum wage adapted to the conditions of each Member State.
And we need to propose that where this national minimum wage exists, all over the EU, in the current favourable economic context, the minimum wage levels are increased across the board by at least 5 per cent.
Written Statements
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