A4-0307/97

Resolution embodying Parliament's proposal to the extraordinary European Council meeting on Employment (20-21 November 1997) (C4-0389/97)

The European Parliament,

- having regard to the decision of the Amsterdam European Council of 16-17 June 1997 to call for an extraordinary meeting of the European Council under the Luxembourg Presidency to review progress in the creation of employment opportunities (SN 150/97),

- having regard to the letter of Mr Juncker, President-in-Office of the European Council, to Mr Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado, President of the European Parliament, asking for Parliament's contribution to the extraordinary summit (C4-0389/97),

- having regard to the report by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the opinions of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, the Committee on Women's Rights, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, the Committee on Regional Policy and the Committee on External Economic Relations (A4-0307/97),

A. whereas the portents of economic recovery in Europe, though faint, are undeniable and forecasts of growth have been revised upwards everywhere; whereas GDP will rise by an average of 2% in 1997, and growth will be between 2.5 and 3% in 1998; whereas in view of the structural improvement in the relationship between GDP growth and job creation, the return to normal growth will be reflected in the creation of more employment than at the time of previous economic recoveries, but whereas it will not be enough to reduce unemployment to a tolerable level,

1. Considers that, in the light of decisions taken by the Amsterdam European Council on employment, definite agreements should be reached at the Luxembourg employment summit concerning the creation of employment in the form of verifiable convergence criteria with quantitative objectives based on benchmarking and best practices; also believes that the combined efforts of the Member States and the EU must aim to increase the current employment rate of 60.4% to 65% within five years and to cut the unemployment rate to 7%; youth unemployment should be reduced to 50% of its current level;

2. Stresses the fact that despite the progress made with the free movement of goods and services, which has created new jobs and business opportunities, there is still much to be done to transform the fifteen national markets into a single large and homogenous market; too much national legislation is still adopted in a piecemeal manner, which increases distortions of competition in the fiscal, social, environmental, consumer protection and other spheres; too many directives are poorly transposed into national law; all these make the case for supporting the Monti proposals regarding the internal market;

3. Favours the adoption of a norm for the inactive/active ratio which reflects the ratio between the active population and the total population aged between 15 and 65 in the three best performing Member States, and asks the Employment Committee to develop further the indicators in the various fields and ensure that Member States apply them; considers that this norm should include criteria for under-represented groups and be linked to social criteria such as the provisions of the European Social Charter and the Community Charter of the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers;

4. Emphasizes the need for European economic, financial, income and monetary policies to be coordinated in order to achieve an appropriate policy mix in the EU that is capable of contributing to growth, investment and employment; emphasizes the need for this coordination to be consolidated by means of an economic, investment and tax pact;

Training

5. Calls upon all parties, in future, to link programmes of training and high- quality education aimed at developing market-relevant skills of the unemployed to a guarantee that the retrained unemployed will be given paid employment for at least a year; special attention should be devoted to groups which are particularly badly affected by unemployment;

6. Calls on the Member States to align their efforts to promote training by gearing their national budgets to the average of the three best-performing Member States and undertaking to increase average spending on the education, professional training of adults and RTD; as a result, the Member States should progressively use resources intended to alleviate the consequences of unemployment (passive measures) to finance active employment measures, in order to raise employment without putting public funding or social protection systems at risk;

7. Calls on the two sides of industry to develop a system of continuing training such that everyone should have a right to continuing training over the whole of their working life as part of the 'lifelong learning' process;

8. Calls on the two sides of industry to conclude agreements on creating jobs which can be assigned to the young and the long-term unemployed after completion of training and to agree on the creation of (temporary) jobs by means of combinations of job rotation, parental leave and lifelong learning; urges the Member States particularly to assist SMEs in complying with this obligation, and calls on employers to make training of staff (and future staff) part of their strategic and investment planning;

Organization of working time

9. Believes that Member States need to address the issue of promoting flexibility in the labour market with regard to working hours, working time and working patterns (such as career breaks, sabbaticals, etc.) through a non-legislative, non-compulsory process based on social dialogue at the level of the individual enterprise, in particular having regard to the vital role of SMEs in job creation; notes the importance of enhancing labour market mobility through improved mutual recognition of diplomas, and through the portability of pensions, insurance and social insurance;

10. Calls on the Commission and the two sides of industry to make proposals concerning 'atypical' employment to ensure that the irregular work which is prevalent in it is accompanied by adequate social security and employees' rights which are equivalent to those for full working-time;

Financial measures

11. Calls for a social or minimum VAT rate to be introduced for labour- intensive services, particularly in the case of work experience and training places and the 'Third System'; the European Council should immediately permit trials of reduced VAT rates;

12. Urges that decisions be taken without delay to reduce taxation of labour by means of European agreements on transferring taxation to the environment, natural resources, energy and capital-intensive production, as proposed in the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment;

13. Urges a shift towards reducing the overall tax burden for individuals and companies;

14. Calls on the Member States to improve the interaction between taxation and welfare systems in order to minimize the disincentives to accepting low- paid job opportunities, by further exploring innovations in the field of social policy such as basic income and negative income tax;

15. Calls on the Member States to secure a switch from passive to active employment measures and to take action to combat the informal economy;

16. Urges the Commission and the Member States to exercise increased vigilance when granting aid to undertakings by monitoring the use made of it so as to ensure that it contributes genuinely to creating stable jobs rather than facilitating business restructurings and relocations that can entail redundancies even when accompanied by 'social plans';

17. Calls for the stimulation and promotion of R& D by means of appropriate tax concessions, easy access to and availability of venture capital and close cross-border cooperation between undertakings, schools and research institutes, the elimination of bureaucratic obstacles to investment, a review and simplification of the administrative burdens on SME's and for coercive measures to dismantle legal and financial obstacles to the establishment of businesses;

18. Calls on the Commission and Council in future to assess all relevant policy measures in the light of their impact on employment; also calls on the Commission to undertake a review of the employment impact of all sections of the EU budget and in the same framework to gear more significantly the Structural Funds towards the prevention of long-term unemployment, the promotion of higher skills, entrepreneurship and adaptability; urges also Member States to increase the efficiency of Structural Fund programmes with greater emphasis on employment;

19. Calls on ECOFIN to devote its next meeting primarily to support for and elaboration of the measures decided at the employment European Council;

20. Calls on the European Council to make it possible for under-utilized EU budget headings to be used for action to enhance employment, notably in connection with local employment initiatives and territorial pacts for the 'Third System', and especially to create a guarantee fund for loans from the European Investment Bank to SMEs,

21. Calls on the European Council to take the initiative of bringing forward the remaining appropriations entered in the ECSC budget to fund operating budgets after 2002 and, starting in 1998, use them for job-creation measures and calls for special funds to be allocated to the EIB for this purpose;

Coordination of economic policy

22. Calls on the European Council meeting in Luxembourg to determine the procedures for coordinating economic policy, drawing up the employment guidelines, carrying out monitoring and drawing up annual reports, so that the Amsterdam conclusions in the field of employment can be put into practice immediately and so that lasting economic growth and ecology, sustainable employment, and social security become the top priorities of the economic policy of the Union and the Member States; calls on the European Council to declare that the Monti proposals on the internal market should be adopted as soon as possible given the very positive effect they are expected to have on employment;

23. Calls on the European Council to take greater account of the economic interdependence of the Member States that has emerged with the transformation of fifteen national markets into a single large and homogenous market and increasingly limits the effectiveness of purely national economic policies; considers it absolutely essential, therefore, that further progress be made towards greater complementarity of the Member States' economic policies so that synergies may be achieved in the stimulation and promotion of innovation, research and technological development by means of appropriate tax concessions for SME's, the facilitation of access to and availability of venture capital for SME's operating in R& D sectors, the promotion of efficient research infrastructure and close cross-border cooperation between undertakings, universities and research institutions;

24. Asks the Luxembourg extraordinary European Council to conclude a binding 'European Pact for Employment, Sustainability and Solidarity¨ as a complement to the Stability Pact concluded in Amsterdam;

25. Sees the development of European infrastructure , i.e. the trans-European networks proposed in the Delors White Paper, as a stimulus to employment that will have its impact within the EU because it also has a growth- promoting function and will encourage investment;

26. Calls on the Member States to continue their efforts to use, as a matter of priority, the room for manoeuvre released by the reform of public finances to reduce labour costs and shift the tax burden from labour to mobile factors; calls therefore for a European tax pact that puts an end to the ruinous tax race in the EU, eases the burden of taxation and other non-wage labour costs and brings about an ecological tax reform;

27. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the extraordinary European Council on employment, the Council, the Commission, the European social partners and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.