Mario Soares

I always state that it is invidious to single out opinions from the many debated and adopted during a plenary session but on this occasion I would like nevertheless to cite an own-initiative opinion on the economic crisis, education and the labour market, drafted by Mario Soares (Portugal, Employees’ Group) and adopted unanimously by the plenary this afternoon. The opinion’s arguments are the red line that runs through many of the discussions I have been listening in to over the past week, from the Ajaccio Chamber of Commerce last Friday through to Lewandowski’s proposals for the financial perspectives presented earlier today. As Soares put it, ‘The cost of ignorance is higher than the cost of education.’ Now, more than ever, the Union must invest in the targeted creation and maintenance of a highly-skilled and educated workforce and that, as Jan Truszczynski stated in Ajaccio and Janusz Lewandowski declared in the EESC’s plenary, is something the Commission has firmly put on the table for the 2014-20 period.