Family Organisations: crisis must be occasion for long-term concepts

[04.06.2010] The current savings suggestions and cut backs, meet with a lack of comprehension from those family organisations united in the AGF. They are pleading, instead, for a future oriented policy which puts the interests of the next generations in the foreground.

“Now, above all, where the sense of future investments is evident the discussion is running with backward direction “, according to the chairperson of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der deutschen Familienorganisationen e.V. (Association of the German Family Organizations), Edith Schwab, on the occasion of the persistent discussion on savings in the area of family and social political measures. ” To save at this moment on children, family and education would be absolutely contra productive”. Hence, measures may not be reduced or given up, even in a financial crisis, in the fight against child poverty and for the improvement of the general living conditions of children and their families.
Saving suggestions in the area of education, in relation to parental i.e. child support money or restriction of the childcare development for children under three-years of age are signs of heading in an absolutely wrong direction. Thus, for instance, a cut back onfamily allowance money for unemployed mothers or families with small and middle incomes, would mostly affect those people with child(ren), whose financial positions are already strained the most. Cut backs would lead to a stagnation of the financial and infrastructural situation of families which would have fatal consequences on their general living conditions and future chances.
Contrary to the politically discussed savings wishes it is nevertheless also necessary in the current crisis to continuously improve the educational opportunities of children and young people. Lowering the poverty risk of families with children must also continuously be worked on. As well as national measures, at the European level for instance, the defining of the purpose of the planned fight against poverty in the European 2020 strategy at the EU summit in June 2010 also belongs to these measures. The AGF hopes that now at the summit a definition of a concrete poverty purpose emerges. “The concrete purpose demanded by the EU commission to combat poverty, must be upheld with the help of the established indicators”, according to Edith Schwab.
The family organizations view the present challenges which have originated from the economic crisis, as quite special challenges which require extraordinary efforts. However, the crisis should in this sense, also be seen as an occasion to give encouragement to long-term drafts.
In the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der deutschen Familienorganisationen e.V. (Association of the German Family Organizations), the big German family organizations are united. The AGF promotes dialog between the associations and interested representatives of the families and the persons responsible for family policy. In addition, the AGF supports the cooperation of the family-politically active organizations on the national and international level.

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