EN Official Journal of the European Union CE 70/174

(2004/C 70 E/183)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2939/03

by José Ribeiro e Castro (UEN) to the Commission

(6 October 2003)

Subject: Promoting and publicising EURES

When my report on the Commission's EURES activity report 1998-1999 entitled ‘Towards an integrated European labour market the contribution of EURES’ for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (A5-0169/2001), adopted on 31 May 2001, was submitted and debated, I drew attention to the fact of public ignorance of the service in the Explanatory Statement.

I wrote that ‘the efforts to promote and publicise the service should be substantially intensified’, proposing the use of ‘publicity … consist [ing of] permanent information, through prolonging and overcoming the merely temporary effect of advertising and promotion campaigns’.

I then observed that for example, EURES website already includes links to job classified announcements published on-line by several press media in Member States, and then asked ‘why not negotiate with these media, in compensation, not only the corresponding cross-links connecting their on-line additions to EURES database, but also the insertion of small ads to EURES network in the correspondent printed editions?’

I would therefore ask the Commission:

— What measures has it taken or does it intend to take to promote and publicise EURES? Specifically, has it already contacted press media, as I suggested? If so, what were the reactions?

— How many users visited the new EURES portal in the days immediately following its reopening after recent remodelling? What difficulties or problems were detected? Is use uniformly spread amongst nationals of the various Member States? Does any nationality preponderate?

— What percentage of the ‘first job market’ does the Commission envisage as being concentrated in EURES?

Answer given by Mrs Diamantopoulou on behalf of the Commission

(11 November 2003)

In connection with the launching of the new EURES job mobility portal on 19 September 2003, a press conference was organised and the event received good media coverage all over Europe. The accompanying mobility information campaign, launched on the same day, will ensure further publicity support to EURES throughout 2003/2004 since all the material used during the campaign refers to the EURES portal, which is also the campaign website (http://europa.eu.int/eures/index.jsp).

EURES is basically a co-operation network between national Public Employment Services (PES). They provide input to the EURES site, including links to the media in the Member States. Following the principle of subsidiarity, specific arrangements with national media are usually made by the respective PES of each Member State. However, the Commission (EURESco) strongly encourages the PES to take all possible measures to promote the network and its site.

In the first two weeks, following the launching of the new EURES portal on 19 September, the number of visitors was 150 000 compared to 256 800 for the whole month of September 2003 and 206 000 for the whole month of August 2003.

Apart from a few minor technical problems, occurring only in the first days, such as long response times from the server, no difficulties or problems were detected.

The use of the EURES site is well spread among the Member States, but there is a substantial proportion of visitors where the country of residence cannot be identified. Provisional statistics on visitors coming from specific countries for September 2003 are as follows: Italy 10,41 %; Germany 6,86 %; Belgium 5,03 %; Netherlands 3,43 %.

The Commission does not have any specific figures available on the proportion of ‘first time job seekers’ among EURES users, since such a question is not asked of the users. Because the younger age groups tend to be more mobile across borders, it is likely, however, that they constitute a significant part of EURES users.