WRITTEN QUESTION E-1217/00

by Camilo Nogueira Román (Verts/ALE) to the Council

(27 April 2000)

Subject: Employment, education, and geographical mobility: the Galician situation

The report adopted by the Lisbon European Council held on 23 and 24 March to agree a new strategic goal for the Union in order to strengthen employment, economic reform and social cohesion as part of a knowledge-based economy noted that the European economy was facing a severe problem on account of the 15 million unemployed, most of whom are women and older workers and who are concentrated in given parts of the Union.

The European Council has consequently undertaken to prepare for the transition to a knowledge-based economy and society by focusing on learning, training, and education.

This reading of the employment situation and the proposed means of remedying it, namely by taking advantage of the new kind of economy, will not go far enough unless it is also borne in mind that unemployment today occurs chiefly in countries with low income per caput and can even affect regions such as Galicia where, although they can offer the necessary educational standards, especially at technical and university level, the circumstances are such that the most talented people have to emigrate in order to enter the knowledge-based economy, producing the paradoxical result that the resources invested in their education are squandered for the benefit of richer countries. This harmful trend is even being promoted in the Union under the name of geographical mobility.

How does the Council therefore propose to tackle the matter of consolidating employment, economic reform, social cohesion, and the regional balance with a view to creating a knowledge-based economy and society when the projected areas of operations are countries in the same position as Galicia, which are hampered by a combination of high unemployment and low income and, although in theory they have the wherewithal to improve education and training, are losing their most gifted young people because they have to emigrate in order to seek work in richer countries with lower unemployment?

Reply

(10 July 2000)

The Lisbon European Council set a new strategic goal for the Union: to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.

In order to achieve this objective, the European Council defined a global strategy for enabling the Union to regain the conditions for full employment and to strengthen regional cohesion in the European Union.

As part of this new process established in Lisbon, the Union will set up a framework for using all available resources in order to ensure transition to the knowledge-based economy and make its own contribution to the effort within existing Community policies in compliance with Agenda 2000.

Under Agenda 2000, regions such as Galicia whose development is lagging behind will be able to receive aid from the Structural Funds and thus benefit from the new Community regional and social aid arrangements in order to deal with problems such as those referred to by the Honourable Member.