From www.guengl.eu
"We should learn from best practice, not the worst," said GUE/NGL MEP Thomas Händel, a member of the European Parliament's Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, in response to the uncalled-for statements by German Chancellor Angela Merkel regarding Europe's different holiday and pension entitlements.
Her desire to adjust pension and vacation entitlements to reflect German practice is not just anti-social but also reveals Merkel's complete misunderstanding of competition and her ignorance, Händel said. "While indeed the German minimum vacation is 4 weeks and the Greeks and Portuguese have, on average, 2 more days, the Germans actually have a real average of 5 weeks per year. Even taking all bank holidays into account, the Germans are way ahead in terms of holiday entitlements in Europe. And in terms of retirement ages, it is important to talk about the effective retirement age. In Germany this is much lower than in many other European countries. By legally extending people's working lives, retirement is simply being slashed. Merkel's nonsense is not only divisive but also simply quite stupid and wrong."
Merkel's ongoing economic lobbying is increasingly reducing Germany's prestige in Europe. This is no longer acceptable. Europe should not mean adapting everything to the lowest common social denominator in all the Member States, said MEP Händel. "In Greece, the aim must be to increase revenues, in particular taxation on the wealthy, and not only that but to really collect them. It is time to stop throwing money at speculators on the financial markets but it would be more judicious to invest this money in Eurobonds, which would enable credits to be funded through lower interest loans with longer maturities. Germany could even relinquish its weapons deals with Greece, which will cost the Greek taxpayers €16 billion alone," MEP Händel concluded.
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