Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-12-16-Speech-3-257"
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"en.20091216.17.3-257"2
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"Thank you for your question, Mrs Harkin. The present crisis is having a very severe impact on millions of people. As a result, dealing with the consequences of the economic crisis is one of the major challenges facing the EU. In view of our ageing population, the Member States of the EU must bring down current levels of unemployment and ensure these high levels of unemployment do not become permanent.
Employment policy is primarily the responsibility of the Member States. However, some years ago, certain guidelines were adopted by the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council. We underlined the fact that since the labour market situation varies so much between different Member States, the measures taken must also differ. We have an annual joint report on employment, in which the Council and the Commission monitor the situation in the various Member States. During the current crisis, the European Council has paid particular attention to precisely this issue of unemployment. In December 2008, an Economic Recovery Plan was agreed for Europe, providing uniform frameworks for the measures to be taken. As part of this Plan, in June 2009, the Council and the European Parliament adopted a Regulation amending the Regulation on establishing the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund. This amendment allows resources from the fund to be used to combat the crisis.
Various measures may be implemented, depending on the situation of the country concerned: temporary adjustment of working hours, lowering of social security contributions, reducing the administrative burden on enterprises, improving the processes used by the labour market authorities, targeting measures at unemployed young people and facilitating mobility. These were highlighted in the Presidency’s report following the informal summit on employment.
In its conclusions from the June summit, the Council specifies a number of measures that should help the Member States – and the parties in the labour market if necessary – to deal with the effects of the global crisis through the application of flexicurity principles. This may mean offering enterprises alternatives to redundancies, giving opportunities for flexible forms of working and temporary adjustment of working hours, improving conditions for entrepreneurs by providing a flexible, secure labour market and making available benefits systems that provide an incentive to work, appropriate levels of social security contributions, expanded and improved back-to-work measures, income support and free movement.
During the debate in November, the ministers took the general view that an active employment policy that includes short-term measures must be maintained. These are measures such as short-term employment, improved employability and training aimed at integrating people into the labour market. At the same Council meeting, ministers agreed that employment is an important factor for the avoidance of exclusion. The link between equality, economic growth and employment is very important, and consequently, the Member States were called upon to expand child care and to reduce pay differentials and other gender-related differences.
In particular, measures must be targeted at those most severely affected by the crisis: older people, young people, people with disabilities and workers without a permanent employment contract. Creating more opportunities and equal opportunities for young people in education, training and employment is one of the principal aims of the new framework of European cooperation in the youth field during the period 2010-2018 that was adopted by the Council on 27 November 2009."@en1
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