WRITTEN QUESTION E-1009/00

by Cristiana Muscardini (UEN) to the Commission

(31 March 2000)

Subject: Vocational training or welfare

The Vienna Summit of 11 and 12 December 1998 rejected both Italy's employment plan, which was deemed to be welfare-oriented and ineffectual, and its programme for vocational training, which was dismissed as non-existent.

1. Did the European funds allocated to vocational training during 1999 do anything to change this assessment or were they used according to the usual criteria, which were so harshly criticised?

2. Is it true, as maintained by a survey in an Italian weekly publication, that young people receive little in the way of education and that only teachers and bureaucrats with the right connections are guaranteed jobs and salaries?

3. Is it true that decisions on courses are taken not on the basis of labour market requirements but in the light of the funds available?

4. Is there an effective control system capable of examining whether courses funded by the Union have met their stated aims and analysing the cost-benefit ratio?

5. Will the Commission provide information on the funds provided to Italy for training in 1998 and 1999, together with the amounts scheduled for 2000, broken down by region?

Answer given by Mrs Diamantopoulou on behalf of the Commission

(26 May 2000)

The Presidency conclusions of the Vienna European Council of 11/12 December 1998 dealt with the national action plans (NAPs) in point 31(1). These are addressed to all the Member States and not to Italy in particular.

The document setting out the Commission's and the Council's judgement on the Italian NAP is the Joint employment report (JER) for 1998, which was adopted in the wake of the Vienna European Council(2). Reference to the programme for vocational training may be found on the pages dedicated to Italy (pp.86-89 of the JER for 1998) the phrase non-existant is not used.

1. The European social fund (ESF) has been allocated for the period 1994-1999, not just for 1999. Some changes have been made to the programming mechanisms to bring the ESF in line with the European employment strategy.

2. Young people are the most successful target group for ESF interventions. This means that the expenditure and the coverage rate are very high.

3. Decisions on courses are taken by the responsible authorities, which are the region and the various ministries involved in the management. Decisions on the allocation of funds to various projects are usually based on the needs of the labour market.

4. Funds allocated from the ESF are the subject of control systems in the Member States and in the Commission. Every intervention is the subject of an ex-ante visa from the Commission and by ex-post on-the-spot controls made by the Court of auditors and by the Commission. Controls carried out by the Member State authorities are carried out in the framework of its national legislation. The Commission also carries out evaluations of the interventions in partnership with the Member States. These evaluations involve cost and benefit analysis and show to what extent targets have been reached.

5. A decision on the funds allocation for the period 2000-2006 is foreseen in the first half of the year. The Community resources devoted to objective 3 amount to 3 888 million. As far as objective 1 is concerned, the total amount of structural funds devoted to the southern regions amounts to 22 122 million. For information on the previous programming period, 1994-1999, a useful tool is the Europa website containing all the necessary information on the interventions in Italy(3).

(1) Document 00300/1/98.

(2) http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/empl&esf/empl99/jer98_en.pdf.

(3) http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg05/esf/en/public/leafs/it-it.htm.