 |
| "Europe is my passion, Europe is my engagement." |
Henri Malosse has been the President of the Employers' Group
since 2009. In a very expressive interview for European Stagiaires Journal on the
current situation of young people and juvenile unemployment, he also talked
about what employers look for, and why he
thinks the Commission is sleeping and why he would rather leave Europe if he
was 20 today.
Looking at your career
path we can see that you have dedicated most of your life to promoting
entrepreneurship in Europe. Why did you decide totake this route?
Everything
is rather related to Europe: Europe is my passion, Europe is my engagement. I
don’t think we can make a career in Europe .
When I am working, for me it is more of being an active and engaged European. I
am very proud to represent employers but my main goal is to work for European
integration,of which I believe in fully. When I was 13 or 14 years old, I started
my engagement with French-German reconciliation. And when I was 20, the iron
curtain was closed and traveling was very complicated. For me, it was a bit
easier because I could obtain a visa, I took my car and went to Poland and Czechoslovakia Western Europe .
Today, I see Europe’s achievements – no visas, no borders - well, not for all
of us, look at the Ukraine Europe
with no borders. And of course, I gained support from employers and from
enterprises to unify Europe .
However the situation is still pretty difficult. Today, young people especially
are struggling to find employment. Why do you think the problem seems to be
even more visible than ever before?
I think that in
the past, society was much younger. Today, we are an older society where people
don’t have trust in young people. I was told by someone that I am too young to
be a president of the EESC, and I am 57. Can you believe it? They believed it
should be person above 60. Why not someone younger, an individual of 25 or 30
years of age? For my son, who is 25, it is difficult to be employed because
people ask for experience. It is a vicious circle. When you are for instance in
India or in South America , it is a value to be young. In Europe , it is a disadvantage.
Do you think internships or volunteering could be a solution and a way
to gain experiences?
I don’t like
employers who give non-paid jobs. I think stagiaires should be paid. Without
money, it is not fair. Otherwise, it means that parents pay, which means that it
is not equal – because some families can afford it, some families cannot. Therefore
I think, it is not any compatible model for Europe.
So what do employers want and need today?
Unfortunately,
today’s employers have difficulties placing their confidence in thefuture. As
they are not confident, they think they will be secured by someone who has more
experience. This is a general perspective in Europe, what is ridiculous. Even though the
economic climate is generally not bad, due to the inaction of the European
institutions and mainly of the European Commission, the business climate is bad
because entrepreneurs understand nothing. Look at Brussels
Where to find a solution?
I don’t see a
solution in some of the technical matters. I think a solution should be more
political. I very much support the European Union's effort to develop mobility.
But this should not be possible just for students. It needs to reach all kinds
of people. Even though Erasmus is a nice project, it covers only ten per cent
of students which means only about one per cent of young Europeans, what is
nothing. I think Erasmus is the only visible success of the EU of last 20
years. Some months ago I would say it was the euro, but today… Let’s see what’s
going to happen with euro. But Erasmus has been accepted only just because Mr.
Jacques Delores, president of the Commission, put his resignation on the table to
save it. But today, Commissioners are… Last week in Paris
What would you do if today, in circumstances of economic instability and
insecurity, you were 20 again? How would you make yourself appealing to
employers?
I think, if I
were 20 today, I would not look for a job. I would go to the streets and I
would block them. I would be a revolutionary. Because the situation today is
not acceptable and I think one should not beg for a job.
But how would you feed yourself?
I would be
tempted to go to some other place, to leave Europe: to go to a place where they
value young generation, maybe to the US
or to South America . I gave some advice to my
son: to go to eastern Europe. Eastern Europe is still not as bad as it is here,
in Western Europe . People are more open to
youth. Because of the political changes there, transition 20 years ago, you can
see younger people not only in politics but also being treated much better.
This is my feeling, I may be wrong.
Recently you have announced your candidacy for the rotating presidency
of the EESC. What would be your goals as a president?
I have two
answers to that. Firstly, I think in times of crisis we should work together:
European member states, EU private companies and EU institutions, to
reindustrialize Europe . We shouldn’t let all
industry leave Europe . When we have negative
commercial outraged balance, we lose jobs, we don’t produce anything. This
support should be coming from a European level, especially to support
innovation, education and reindustrialization. I would like that all committees
would take an initiative in those three actions.
Secondly, I
would like to support projects that build on the concept of a European
identity, which is a crucial point. Today, because of my history, my travelling
experiences and my knowledge of languages I see that the European identity is a
way of being proud of something. I am French, I can be proud of that, but I can
personally be proud of Europe because of what we have achieved in sixty years:
peace, Schengen, the enlargement process, Europe
is no longer divided. I would like to build on that, for example to make a
private company be proud of being European by putting a European flag in front
of their building. I also would like to extend this European identity to
tourism. For example your country, Slovakia France who knows anything
about Slovakia , and they
would probably think you are somewhere close to Siberia
and you have some white bears over there and they wouldn’t know how beautiful your
county is. So, we have to promote European tourism so that European citizens get
to know Europe .
What about youth and its employment? What kind of priorities do you have
in this matter?
One of my
plans after being elected will be – after visiting Jean Monnet’s house discover
our roots – to check all the priorities regarding employment of young people
and to discuss our working programme with young people. You know, European
citizens don’t trust the European institutions anymore. But they still believe
in the European idea. Thus to build a project based on a European identity,
EESC should be the place where all the hopes of citizens should be presented
and we can assert pressure on the Commission, the Council or the Parliament to
move and act.
Are those goals also a kind of a guideline for solution to the crisis?
I think the solution
to the crisis is made up of two things. First, some concrete, common action from
the EU, Member States and the private sector to boost the European economy,
European industry, innovation, clusters, links between universities and
companies, research and development. And those things should no longer be done
at a national level. If we act together, we can do something, we can compete with
America or China.
The second
thing is to connect citizens with what is
the EU doing. Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy want a new treaty. But if they asked the
public their opinion, the answer would be no. People will think that Germany
and France cannot decide for us. We have to make European citizens be proud of
what is going on in Europe. And that is why I see a concrete project of
building European identity as a way to save this continent.
And now for a bit of a visionary question. How do you see Europe in,
let's say, 50 years?
I can tell you
two scenarios: positive and negative. For the positive scenario I see the
United States of Europe in twenty years. Maybe not based on the model of the
US, maybe on themodel of Switzerland – a confederation of states. On the other
hand, the worst one: I like cinema and some years ago some low-budget film made
by Africans, I don’t remember from which country. It was a sci-fi about how the
world would look in 2050. In Africa, they unified all the countries, they had common
institutions, and Africa became very wealthy. Europe looked disastrous: it went
back to nationalism, poverty, and different types of wars between countries.
Europe was divided. And Europeans took boats, and traveled to Africa to find jobs.
In Africa, you could see those rich people with good cars and an expensive lifestyle.
White people were cleaning sides of streets. I wish to Africa all the success,
but I don’t wish this for Europe.
