Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-09-Speech-3-066"
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"en.20021009.6.3-066"2
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". – Mr President, firstly I congratulate the European Parliament for its stimulating and constructive resolution which was adopted on 25 September 2002. It provides a useful assessment of successes and achievements as well as some of the weaknesses of the European Employment Strategy. It is, of course, important that it identifies concrete priorities for the future.
Further consideration should be given as to how the European Parliament could be actively involved in the design and development of the employment strategy and on how national parliaments can be better integrated into this process. There are major problems in some Member States, where the national parliaments have not participated in, nor have, in some cases, any idea about the employment strategy, the monetary procedures or the common goals.
This is quite a long list of shared convictions and perspectives but the new process for the strategy has only just begun. As you know, the formal proposal for the employment guidelines 2003 will be presented in April 2003 together with the proposal for the broad economic policy guidelines. In the meantime, there is room and time for everybody to become part of the process and to make their voices heard. The Commission will continue to develop the idea of open participation.
In order to further stimulate and facilitate the involvement of potential stakeholders, the Commission intends to adopt another communication. This will be presented in January and will give an outline of the revised strategy with concrete objectives and targets. There is enough time for a rich exchange of views with the Parliament over the next few months in order to define and to agree on procedures for the new European Employment Strategy.
The resolution was most valuable to the Council. The discussions we had yesterday in Luxembourg concerned both the evaluation of the European Employment Strategy and the streamlining of processes in the context of the Lisbon agenda.
As the Minister said, there was a consensus between the Member States on the content and the procedures for the future. I am pleased to say that there is now a large common platform of shared views between the three institutions upon which we can base the further development of the strategy and, in particular, define the next generation of employment guidelines.
I would like to concentrate on three main areas: policy messages, the process and governance of the process. First, as far as the policy messages are concerned, we all agree that the integrated coverage of broad areas is one of the positive achievements of this strategy. There is an agreement that there is a need to keep this wide range of issues within the strategy and not to narrow its scope. Some progress has also been made on the identification of key priorities. There is a long list of these, including job creation and increasing labour force participation; improving quality in work; modernising and improving the functioning of the labour market; ensuring flexibility and security; increasing labour force supply via policies promoting an inclusive labour market; promoting active and preventive labour market policies; reforming tax and benefit systems; improving lifelong learning skills and mobility and promoting developments in entrepreneurship conducive to job creation.
Obviously the next step will consist of transforming this long list into a structured proposal for Employment Guidelines. It remains to be seen whether or not the current four-pillar structure, on which we have articulated the development strategy, is still needed in order to reflect these priorities, or if other groupings could improve their visibility.
If possible, the guidelines should be reduced in number. This brings me to the second issue which is the process. Within the framework provided by the Treaty, the Employment Strategy should focus on the medium and long-term challenges to be met by the Lisbon 2010 deadlines. With a view to ensuring a clearer focus on outcomes and on the medium and long-term goals of the strategy, there is a need for greater stability in the Employment Guidelines which should not be changed every year. Member States' National Action Plans must focus more on implementation.
Overlaps and duplications with other processes should be more limited, in particular, through coordination between the employment strategy and the broad economic policy guidelines. It is crucial that the respective roles and contributions be better defined.
The third point concerns the governance of the process. This is an issue on which the European Parliament expressed great interest in its resolution of 25 September 2002. The ideas for future orientations which I have just outlined should provide a better framework for more openness and participation. Less and clearer objectives should make the strategy more visible. A stronger focus on implementation and results should provide a better knowledge-base and more transparency.
Therefore, within this new framework, and with a stronger, more concrete focus, social partners would play a more effective role, and regional and local authorities would understand their role more easily and could participate more effectively."@en1
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