Mr President, rapporteurs, today it was the intention to have a joint debate on both the global economic guidelines and the employment guidelines. The rapporteur for these employment guidelines of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs stated a moment ago that we have a problem. Not only are we trying to simplify the guidelines, not only are we here to talk about a three-year period, but we are also trying, as they say, to 'streamline' them. We have not managed to do this. This is very unfortunate since the broad and global economic guidelines in the text to a large extent refer to the employment guidelines which are yet to be discussed in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. The problems are patently clear, and in the light of these problems – some people in the Netherlands say that every disadvantage has its advantage – in the light of these circumstances, we have held emergency talks with the Council and the Commission in order to alleviate this problem we have, namely the inability to submit our opinion on the employment guidelines on time. The Council has promised that, in the next few years, the consultation period will be longer, and the Commission has also promised that it will submit its proposals more quickly. Both have pledged this Having said this, there is still a problem in my view. As Mr Schmid has already pointed out, we are unable to commit to deadlines in certain areas. This means that we need to inform both the Commission and the Council of the opinions of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs in a more informal manner as and when we can and, at a later stage, of the opinions of the plenary too. I would mention the fact that, since there were 167 amendments to the employment guidelines, some restraint is called for. I should like to make a few comments on the broad economic guidelines and particularly those employment guidelines. As some speakers have mentioned already, we are at the moment talking about both long-term policy – which could be referred to as the Lisbon policy, 2010 – and short term policy, and, in the short term, we are facing a recession, as we were reminded a moment ago. During a recession such as this, there is no longer a labour shortage, but rather a job shortage. This means that employment guidelines should be more dynamic in the short term and should also be more country-specific in a number of ways. This job shortage also translates into a shortage of work placement and work experience places. Neither does it offer any incentives to solve the poverty problems. Reintegration is said to be adversely affected and the concept of availability comes under pressure. Financial incentives that are being mentioned here are more limited and will not immediately have the desired effect on the poverty trap and the promotion of jobs. In fact, what we need to do in the short term is to consider job sharing again. Issues that are very much on the agenda and which I should like to emphasise are working shorter hours, options to cut down the number of hours, the reduction of overtime, which is currently growing rapidly, and possibly promoting subsidised work and social economy or the third sector. Alongside this, entrepreneurship should be stimulated. In our committee, a number of proposals have already been expressed in the form of compromise proposals in order to stimulate the small and medium-size businesses, and they strongly emphasise the fact that the pillar of equality has taken a knock. We should like to maintain this equality. This does mean, however, as the Belgian Employment Minister has already pointed out, that certain target groups, such as the elderly, should perhaps be pleased with the fact that they can enjoy their early retirement at the moment. This is the subject of political debate. We will bring our proposals to the next meetings and we will take it from there.

Political group: Verts-ALE