By strengthening Europe's capacity to promote growth and employment, the single currency increases the need to go even further in the coordination of economic policies and to implement a genuine European employment strategy. Appreciable progress was made on this front in 1998, with the Member States drawing up for the first time national action plans to implement the guidelines for employment adopted in 1997, while the Commission presented a number of important policy documents in this area. When approving the guidelines for employment for 1999, the Vienna European Council stressed the need to strengthen this process still further, setting verifiable target figures and deadlines and putting in place common indicators and a coherent statistical basis, with a view to drawing up a European pact for employment with increased involvement of the social partners. The various Community policies were also harnessed to help create an environment favourable to growth, competitiveness and employment. Initiatives taken in social policy, particularly on the free movement of workers, modernising the organisation of work, promoting the social dialogue, and working time, are important elements in this European strategy.
Investment is a key element in job creation.
The Commission suggested that the Member States should increase the share of their budgets devoted to public investment. The raft of measures drawn up in 1997 to combat harmful tax competition and make tax structures more employment-friendly were put into effect. Significant progress was made in implementing other aspects of the action plan for the single market, relating in particular to the elimination of barriers to trade, intellectual property and financial services. Liberalisation of the internal energy market continued, with the adoption by Parliament and the Council of the directive on the internal market in natural gas. 1998 was also the first year that the telecommunications market was fully opened up to competition.