WRITTEN QUESTION No. 1073/97 by Christine ODDY to the Commission. Employment for offenders
Date: 1997-03-21
Institutions: European Parliament, ODDY
Subjects: EU aid, European Social Fund, action programme, delinquency, employment policy, marginalisation, reintegration into working life













EUR-Lex - 91997E1073 - EN






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91997E1073

WRITTEN QUESTION No. 1073/97 by Christine ODDY to the Commission. Employment for offenders  


Official Journal C 045 , 10/02/1998 P. 0012 





WRITTEN QUESTION E-1073/97 by Christine Oddy (PSE) to the Commission (21 March 1997)Subject: Employment for offendersThe European Offender Employment Group is continuing its work to encourage a higher priority to be given to the reintegration of offenders and to work for improvements in the quality and quantity of work undertaken.How is the Commission ensuring that this important initiative receives the attention it requires to be effective in its objective?Answer given by Mr Flynn on behalf of the Commission (29 May 1997)Essentially, the financial support of the Community for actions for employment is conveyed through structural funds, and in particular the European social fund. Objective 3 of these funds provides support to initiatives in favour of groups particularly hit by unemployment and among those, ex-offenders are specifically mentioned. Individual requests are processed by the authorities of each Member State.There exist, within the framework of the structural funds, Community initiatives which also support specific projects, provided they are innovatory or transitional. Projects in the field of integration of youth offenders could be supported under the Employment initiative (assistance to groups particularly affected by unemployment), in particular under the strands of the Youthstart initiative, the Horizon initiative or the Integra initiative (social integration of groups hit by social exclusion).Further to the initiative of the budgetary authority to dedicate 1.5 MECU (from the budget line 'Employment and labour market') to the integration of ex-offenders into the labour market, the Commission sponsored from 1993 to 1995 two types of basic action within the framework of the Ex-offenders programme. The first was the support of a network of a team of national experts dealing with research and the diffusion and exchange of information. The second consisted of the funding of 24 local projects with aims and activities focused on the integration of ex-offenders into the labour market.This specific programme ended in 1996 with an independent evaluation of the main results of the activities carried out.The additional direct, specific support which the Commission was able to provide in the past to initiatives aimed at facilitating the reintegration of ex-offenders or delinquents through budget line B3-4103 'Action to combat poverty and social exclusion', has been suspended following the action (C-240/96) brought before the Court of justice by the United Kingdom, challenging the legal base of the budget line.As a consequence of the action, Community funding of sixty one projects selected during 1996 remains in suspense and conditional pending the final judgement of the Court of justice. More than one third of these projects are directly or indirectly related to delinquency. Approximately 1 MECU has provisionally been allocated to these projects. Demand was much higher however. 136 applications were received, asking for a total subvention amounting to 13 MECU.No new commitments credits have been allocated to this budget line for 1997.