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The fight against poverty should also be part of the Commission’s program of the first hundred days

2019. 09. 18.

Press Release of MEP Lívia Járóka

Lívia Járóka, Vice-President of the European Parliament, in a speech in Strasbourg invoking the spirit, achievements and heritage of the Pan-European Picnic, called the European Commission to take concrete action to remedy European poverty and move away from a two-speed European Union that perpetuates double standards.

“With many of my fellow members from the post-communist states and Western Europe, I am proud to be part of the process of creating freedom and unity within the framework of the Pan-European Picnic thirty years ago,” said Járóka.

“It is very interesting and regrettable that thirty years later, this unity, the political, social and moral horizon that we opened at that time [as well as] tolerance, equality and freedom, seem to be disappearing more and more, and we are now finding ourselves on the verge of splitting apart. If not in some other way, then definitely economically,” said the Fidesz politician.

“Nowadays, there are one hundred and twenty million poor people in the Member States with no facilities for the basic hygiene needed for housing, such as toilets, sanitation or even clean drinking water,” said the Vice-President.

“The management and resolution of all these problems need to be addressed in the first hundred days of the Von der Leyen Commission,” she said. “If we cannot find a remedy for poverty across Europe, then our democracies are essentially toothless lions with no ability to protect the fundamental interests of their citizens. Maintaining our thirty year-old ideals, I ask the Commission to do something to eradicate poverty,” concluded MEP Lívia Járóka.