What Agnes spoke about.

Mr President, I would like to start with a closing line. And it reads: “The soft forces will certainly win in the end.” Allow me to be a little nostalgic in my last speech here as a MEP in plenary. Because we've come a long way. From Gothenburg to Porto and last week to Terhulpen. Over the past decade, I have had the honour of fighting for a more social Europe, for equal pay for equal work in the

Mr President, allow me to make a comparison. For the last ten years, we have been working to remodel our garden. So we mowed the lawn, we planted new trees, we sewed the grass, and we sewed flowers, but we forgot that we never were able to remove or reduce the barrier that’s blocking the water supply. And the vital thing to make the garden grow is water and that’s lacking in the economic governanc

Madam President, there are still right-wing conservatives who are still focussed on this old-fashioned narrative of the trickle-down economy at the cost of people, which has been debunked already for years. But luckily, I have to say there is a new wind blowing in Europe and last week was the proof of it. In La Hulpe we signed the declaration that sets the social agenda for the upcoming years, cal

Mr President, more than a million people in the Netherlands live in poverty and many of them work for uninhabitably low wages. Prices for rent, energy and groceries have risen considerably and many companies have benefited from that inflation. The European directive on adequate minimum wages adopted last year thanks to the work of Commissioner Schmit and this Parliament offers hope. But then the d

Mr President, Minister, Commissioners, there is a housing crisis going on in Europe. If you have to find a roof over your head now, a decent house is the needle in the haystack. There is a lack of homes, the rents are sky high or the homes are poor in quality. We need an active housing policy, including in Europe. It is therefore essential that the European Commission and the Member States work to

Madam President, first things first – happy birthday to Javier Moreno Sánchez. This is indeed a special moment, and I hope you enjoy your evening later on. Voorzitter, commissaris, ik knok in dit Parlement al tien jaar voor gelijke rechten voor alle werknemers. Het recht op vrij verkeer is een werknemersrecht en dat moeten we te allen tijde verdedigen. Maar dit recht mag niet synoniem zijn met uit

Mr President, Commissioner, ‘More theft than profit’: That's how the Jumbo supermarket headlined this year. At Ahold – Albert Heijn – they also pretended to have had a very tough year: even though the turnover had increased, the profit had been a little disappointing. A profit that is still at least 100 million. Part of that profit now goes to video cameras to prevent theft. But honestly, I think

Mr President, thank you Vice-Presidents, dear Commissioner, dear colleagues, I think it’s safe to say that we are all disappointed. But perhaps we can also say we’re all angry because twice we have reached this agreement, twice the Member States failed to endorse it. And I think it sets to notice that liberal and conservative voices in France, Estonia, Greece and Germany are blocking the opportuni

Mr President, Commissioner, it is nice that there are teachers from Zwolle in the public gallery. A very nice visit at the moment. I would like to start with a quote: ‘Now let no one claim that schoolmasters are not adventurous jobs.’ Master Staal, who taught at an Amsterdam poor school at the beginning of the twentieth century, speaks. He proudly writes about his profession, and rightly so. To th

Mr President, Commissioner, traineeships often demand a great deal from trainees. Stories about a 32-hour work week and a set of tasks to counter you are often common and interns are far too often not hired as an extra labor force on top of the permanent team, but as a full-fledged force for work. They then do the same work as all other employees, but are not paid for it or are poorly paid for it.

Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, we are calling in Europe for labour shortages. We seem to think it is normal for a European Commissioner to say that we need 1 million migrant workers. As if you can order migrant workers per kilo. Whole sectors in Europe rely on the exploitation of their workers. Workers, mostly migrant workers, are underpaid and exploited in, for example, the slaughterhouses

Mr President, I’m standing here simply to do the job I do for every worker in the EU. I’m pleading for decent working conditions. The European Parliament is an employer and has, therefore, responsibilities as an employer to take care of all their staff, and when a MEP, for whatever reason, is leaving Parliament during the mandate, it cannot be so that the APA is out of a job in a matter of days. S

Madam President, dear Commissioner, I think the holes in the EU's public procurement rules are too well known, because study after study shows that the voluntary nature of social public procurement is not really making enough of a difference. We still see this race to the bottom. Public contracts are most often awarded socially based on the cheapest offer, and too often to companies that violate l

Madam President, Commissioner, dear Dennis, when the doorbell rings, do you open the door if you know your house is a little bit of a mess? I must say, I would be hesitant. I think most people would try to stall having guests over or at least try quickly to cover the biggest mess in some kind of cupboard. I think the same is true for Member States: if they know there are cases of labour exploitati

Mr President, Commissioner, State Secretary, young people have a harder and harder time starting their lives. They had to take on high debts to get a diploma. They have to do internship after internship, looking for a job. And those internships are usually unpaid. And the jobs they get are often part-time, for some time or very insecure. And when they finally want to leave their parents, they will

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, for more than two years we have given the social partners every opportunity to negotiate the right to disconnect. Two weeks ago, employers ran away. They don't seem to be waiting for an agreement. You can also think: it is easy for them if their employees are on standby 24/7, with all the consequences for the employees – stress, depressive feelings

Mr President, Madam Vice-President, the Netherlands is unfortunately no exception to the rest of Europe. Also in our country, parents with children up to 500 euros per month are too short. And of that we have to say: You can't do that any longer. Children who grow up in poverty feel the consequences throughout their lives. At school, on the job market and on their health. And for those missed oppo

Mr President, Mr First Vice-President, it is the last year of the von der Leyen Commission and today we are presenting the last work programme. As far as I am concerned, a number of important legislative proposals still need to be tabled before the end of the mandate. Let me begin by saying that I welcome the mention of the change to the European Works Council. That's important. But the promised b

Mr President, Commissioner, State Secretary, house prices have skyrocketed in recent years and homelessness in Europe has almost doubled in the last decade. It is clear that market forces in the housing market have had terrible consequences. A house is not a means of speculation in the market, but a primary necessity of life. So it's time to take back control of that market. Accessible social hous

Mr President, Commissioner, we have stressed this on several occasions: There is no such thing as safe exposure to asbestos. Every day, 250 Europeans die from asbestos-related cancer. Fortunately, this directive is a good step to get that number to zero. But we are not yet ready with this directive, because Europe is on the verge of a major renovation wave. More than 200 million buildings will hav

Mr President, more and more people are falling through the lower boundary. For example, people can pay their bills with difficulty, more and more people have to knock on the food bank or they get into trouble if their washing machine breaks down. Even if they work full-time. Therefore, Member States need to take the implementation of the Adequate Minimum Wage Directive seriously. All people have t

Madam President, dear Commissioner, for months, lorry drivers transporting our goods across Europe didn’t receive any pay for their work. Around 100 drivers are now collectively striking in a car park in Graefenhausen, Germany. Surely, as customers, we should be able to expect that people transporting our products are treated fairly. Yes, it can be inconvenient for customers that the clothes that

Mr President, wages are lagging behind, the quality of work is deteriorating and the middle class is shrinking. And you can't talk about the shrinkage of the middle class without wondering where those people are and why. And yet the liberals in this debate only want to talk about the middle class. Let's do that. The best recipe to protect the middle class is to give all workers a living wage. In t

Madam President, dear Commissioner, dear State Secretary, I think it should be clear that no billionaire should pay lower taxes than a teacher, a nurse or a supermarket worker. But unfortunately, that is the reality today. People pay more taxes on labour than they do on capital, and that makes inequality grow and poverty increase. The system, I think we should say, is broken, because while the sup

Mr President, everyone has heard stories of students who do an unpaid traineeship under the heading of learning experience, but in certain cases have the same responsibilities as their colleagues in the workplace. The Dutch Labour Inspectorate recently imposed a fine on an airline for having fully scheduled 60 trainees for months in order to save costs. As a thank you, interns usually receive a bo