Our economic policy failings were, of course, made worse by weaknesses in labour market policies, and by a general slowness across much of industry to adapt to structural changes. These shortcomings have exacted a high price. Today, we need additional remedial labour market actions to help those who have been victims of policy failure, as well as improved measures to ease the process of change and build a quality workforce, and above all preventive strategies to avoid such problems re-emerging in the future. And we must press ahead with the wider process of reform so that structural policies can support and underpin economic policies. We need to continue to modernise labour market regulations and ensure that social protection systems are compatible with modern labour market needs.
Failures are costly, both economically and socially.
Badly designed social welfare schemes create obstacles and disincentives to work and fail those who need help most. I believe that, taken together, EMU, the employment strategy, and the economic policy guidelines offer the Union the opportunity to emulate the US employment performance, while at the same time avoiding most of the adverse social consequences that US labour market and social protection policies seem to have entailed. Like most successes, the recent political breakthrough on employment is the fruit of long-term investment, both political and intellectual. I, and my colleagues and staff, are proud to have played our part in that process. I had not had direct Ministerial responsibility for employment matters when I came to the Commission at the start of 1993.