Warning bells rang loud and clear in Brussels last week as Portugal was deprived of much-needed funds to fight youth unemployment.
The move followed a decision taken behind closed doors by President of the European Parliament, Martins Schulz.
Euro MP Rui Tavares (“Os Verdes”, Green Party) now questions whether this is the way Schulz will behave in future if he succeeds Durão Barroso (as he’s tipped to do) and becomes European Commission President.
Expressing disappointment, Tavares pointed out that Schulz only needed to have made “a little decision”, but instead he ended up toeing the established EU line.
The issue centred on which countries qualify for European Social Funding (ESF) for 2014. As things stand right now, countries under financial adjustment programmes (Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus) are not included and only France, Italy and Spain appear to be on the list for funds. Os Verdes think they should be, and they presented an amendment to the ESF, which they hoped would be openly discussed.
However, German-born Schulz, in his capacity as parliamentary president, imposed what newspapers described as a “new methodology” and thus the amendment was “kept at bay”. No one got to talk about it. It wasn’t even introduced.
Condoning “the debility of agreements reached behind closed doors”, Tavares alleged the implications were “not democratic”, nor did they “take into account the reality of different countries”.
Portugal’s youth unemployment rate is one of the highest in the Eurozone.
