Marietta Giannakou 1st European Summit “Education on the Cloud” 22-03-2014 http://schoolonthecloud.eu/ LLP Project: School on the Cloud

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Speech by Mrs Marietta Giannakou
Head of the Greek Parliamentary Delegation in the European People’s Party,
former Minister of National Education and Religious Affairs
Dear Ms Doukas-Pateras,
Dear Mr. Doukas,
Dear participants,
I am delighted to address the very interesting conference on “Education on the
Cloud”. Doukas School deserves our congratulations for raising a cutting-edge topic
that opens up new avenues for learning at school both for teachers and pupils.
We are aware of the fact that new generations experience the digital revolution.
Every day we observe the capacity of children and young people to use digital media
and IT facilities. We find difficult to follow these developments. However, what we can
do better is to facilitate their access to new technologies by investing on relevant
hardware and software. Besides, most policy initiatives, as the emblematic project
Europe 2020 Strategy, suggest that innovation and smart growth are fundamental for
sustainable growth.
In my experience as Minister of Education I had the opportunity to realize the
potential of Information and Telecommunication Technologies in education as well as
the capacity of the Greek education community to take full advantage of these. Indeed,
we invested a great deal of our time and resources in closing the gap of IT in schools
compared to EU average rates. EU funding was indispensable in that regard.
Our country and the EU in general currently face unusual high rates of
unemployment and recession. The Eurozone crisis sets some unprecedented
challenges for European integration. As most member states face the spectrum of
recession, a great part of European citizen‟s experiences falling standards of income
and living, while they seem pessimistic over short-term prospects. Meanwhile,
unemployment reaches record-high rates in most countries. The most disadvantaged

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groups of citizens, the young people in particular, feel helpless in their effort to find a
job and secure even a standard source of income, especially as welfare policies are
running out of money.
On these grounds, the ability of the EU to deliver prosperity as one of its
foundation tasks is put into question. In consequence, this situation might destabilize
the very high levels of civic adherence and trust that underpinned the EU for many
decades so far. There are clear signs about changing civic attitudes. Indeed, most polls
cast evidence that citizens expect more efficient solutions to the ongoing Eurozone
crisis and concrete results to jobs creation, while some segments of the citizenry
develop even a more skeptical attitude to the very scope of the EU.
The European Council is well aware of the situation. As early as in June 2012
the “Compact for Growth and Jobs” was agreed. The Compact includes many
important policy tasks and financial tools, such as growth-friendly fiscal consolidation,
normal lending to the economy, competitiveness, deepening the single market,
completing the internal energy market, promoting a European Research Area, labor
mobility and financing the economy with more than 120 billion euros. All these add up
to a timely response to the EU, but progress should be closely monitored.
In a recent report to the European Council on these matters, the Commission
highlights fields in which more effort is needed. Employment and the labor market is
one of the fields that clearly stand out and completing action is required. For instance,
the EU secured 6 billion euros for the Youth Employment Initiative for the coming
years, but better preparation should be made at the national level for the most effective
use of funds.
Other initiatives, such as the Youth Employment Package and Youth
Guarantee, have not reached the phase of full implementation yet. Moreover, we can
do more to facilitate labor mobility across Europe with regard to the recognition of
professional qualifications and posting of workers.
The Lisbon strategy set the goal for „more and better jobs‟ by 2010, but
delivered rather poor results. Compared to 20 million of unemployed persons in 2000,
the same figure now has reached over 26,5 million people in 2013. The „Europe 2020
strategy‟ offers a more elaborate approach to „smart, sustainable and inclusive growth‟
in Europe. Citizens rightly expect concrete results with regard to unemployment. EU
institutions and national governments are responsible in accordance with their

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competences to take up all the necessary action in order to pursue the respective
goals. The “Growth and Jobs Compact” makes evident that all the parties are fully
aware of the situation and have already responded with specific actions. Moreover, the
Multiannual Financial Program will offer more opportunities for reinvigorating Europe‟s
suffering economies.
The way the EU institutions will deal with the thorny issues of recession and
unemployment shall possibly have an impact on the progress and paths to European
integration. In the coming European Parliament elections in May 2014 we should do
our best to tackle the issues that fuel the specter of skepticism, cynicism and
intolerance over Europe by advancing the purposes of political cooperation, peace,
democracy, prosperity, solidarity and care for the least advantaged citizens.
Finally, let me point out that the Greek people shows great strength and
integrity in the way the Greeks deal with the effects of crisis. Recession led to a sharp
decrease of the GDP by more than 25%, while unemployment reached the record-high
rate of more than 27% (greater than 62% youth unemployment). There is possibly no
equivalent with any other democratic state in peaceful times. Nevertheless, the Greek
society shows its great social capital founded on the significance of the family and
other forms of social solidarity that help people go on with their lives and face with
integrity the grave effects on their standards of living. It should not be underestimated
that Greece faces no more threats to political stability and social cohesion compared to
any other member state with significantly less problems.
For all these reasons, we expect that Greece‟s return to growth is a matter of
European and international concern and interest. Greek citizens and the government
implements all the necessary reforms that would safeguard economic stability, free
competition and entrepreneurship as well as a political environment conducive to
efficient policy-making and sensitive to protecting the most vulnerable groups of
citizens and maintaining high standards of welfare for all citizens.
I strongly believe that one of our country‟s assets is education and this will be
decisive for sustainable growth in the coming years. Therefore, we should safeguard all
the necessary preconditions and means for developing skills and achieving new tasks.
Cloud computing is really a very useful issue that has to be promoted. I wish every
success to all those involved in the project. Most of all, I cordially wish students to take
full advantage of the opportunities in order to make our country a real protagonist in
Europe.