Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-04-08-Speech-2-173"
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".
Mr President, a month ago I presented the revised Employment Strategy to Parliament. I think that today, with the joint presentation of the two packages, we are taking an important step and making an important contribution to improved and faster implementation of the Lisbon objectives, while at the same time taking account of the needs and problems of an enlarged Europe.
The indicators and forecasts for the period of time in question, with fairly worrying economic growth indicators, show that employment maintained a low rate of growth in 2002. The increase in employment was around 1.1%, which means 500 000 new jobs, although we must of course assume that the poor growth forecasts for next year will also have repercussions on employment. It is therefore very important for us to coordinate and step up our efforts so that we can fire growth and help create jobs.
The proposal we are presenting has a fundamental change in comparison with the past. This is the result of broad consultations with Parliament, the social partners and the Member States; it is the result of a thorough analysis and evaluation of the previous five years and, when it was presented for the first time in January, it really did have broad support from the Council.
The employment guidelines are being presented this year together with the economic guidelines. It is significant that we have taken an important step this year as far as the timing is concerned. This will avoid the confusion which has arisen in previous years, when there was six months' difference between the two packages. We have also taken an important step as far as the substance is concerned, because we have achieved a considerable degree of cohesion and compatibility between the two packages of guidelines, which will be conducive to better coordination and more efficient cooperation with the Member States.
There are fewer guidelines and they are simpler and, of course, they are very clear as regards the results they must achieve. The guidelines are not particularly analytical, because employment policies have a strong national dimension and there are questions of subsidiarity, so that every country must, to some degree, select the means it will use. However, they have clear political guidelines and we do, of course, elucidate specific results which must be achieved in each sector, linked in several cases to quantitative targets.
What is the new structure? What is the new conception of the employment package? The political basis is the interaction needed between economic policies, employment policies and social policies. So there are three objectives: more jobs, better jobs and a labour market which does not exclude anyone. These three objectives underpin ten priorities which basically cover a broad range of reforms. These reforms relate to people's needs. Specifically, they relate to lifelong learning and the services which need to be provided to the unemployed; they refer to education systems, and of course they refer to companies, for example the problem of bureaucracy in companies and the question of supporting companies and promoting entrepreneurship. They also refer to a very broad range of reforms such as reforms in social security and protection systems, the question of pensions, the question of taxation, especially when it refers to low wages. And finally, they refer to the question of equality of the two sexes and the participation of women in the labour market, which is mainstreamed in all the policies, although there is, of course, a specific priority which relates to equality of the sexes and all groups subject to discrimination. They do, of course, follow on from the previous guidelines, but the new factors mainly refer to the question of the ageing population, the need for policies which will keep older workers in the labour market and the question of mobility. One interesting new factor is undeclared work, which is also a priority of the Italian Presidency.
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to refer to the quantitative targets. The Employment Strategy is based on the method of open cooperation. Consequently, there are no sanctions and there are no binding measures. This means that, if this is to be more than an exposé of ideas, we need to agree and commit to specific results, to specific quantitative targets. We therefore propose a series of quantitative targets. Most of them are of a national character; in other words, they are set by the Member States, although there are indicators for all of them, and there is just one exception, undeclared work and the serious analysis on the part of the Commission.
Finally, there are guidelines relating to the intergovernmental model as far as the participation of the social partners and reform of employment services are concerned and, finally, there is the question of recommendations, with specific recommendations for each Member State. We have taken account of the analysis of the labour market in each Member State and we have looked at the recommendations in the light and from the point of view of the new guidelines. There are 57 recommendations to the Member States this year and, of course, I must reiterate the compatibility and cohesion which exists with the timing guidelines to which Mr Solbes referred.
I am sorry that Parliament will be pressed for time this year in order to give its opinion on the employment package. I would like to assure you that the Commission will do whatever it can to help Parliament work through this in a short space of time and as efficiently as possible, and I hope that, from next year, there will be better and, from the time point of view, more relaxed communication between us."@en1
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