Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on: - the 'Communication from the Commission: "From Guidelines to Action: the National Action Plans for Employment"', and - the 'Communication from the Commission: "Proposal for Guidelines for Member States' Employment Policies 1999"'
Date: 1998-11-19
Institutions: European Committee of the Regions
Subjects: EU Member State, employment policy, equal treatment, job creation, professional qualifications, regional policy

22.2.1999

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 51/59

Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on:

— the ‘Communication from the Commission: “From Guidelines to Action: the National

Action Plans for Employment”’, and

— the ‘Communication from the Commission: “Proposal for Guidelines for Member States’

Employment Policies 1999”’

(1999/C 51/10)

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS,

having regard to the Communication from the Commission on ‘From Guidelines to Action:
The National Action Plans for Employment’ (COM(98) 316 final) and the Communication
from the Commission: ‘Proposal for Guidelines for Member States’ Employment Policies
1999’ (COM(98) 574 final);

having regard to its Bureau decision taken on 15 July 1998 under the fourth paragraph of
Article 198c of the Treaty establishing the European Community to draw up an opinion on
the subject and to direct Commission 6 — Employment, Economic Policy, Single Market,
Industry, SMEs — to undertake the preparatory work;

having regard to the document ‘Act locally for employment’ adopted by the Council of
European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) on 12 October 1998;

having regard to the draft opinion (CdR 279/98 rev.) adopted by Commission 6 on 28 September
1998 (rapporteur: Mr Bodfish),

adopted the following opinion at its 26th plenary session of 18 and 19 November 1998 (meeting
of 19 November).

A. Background and Introduction

will be implemented immediately and therefore before
ratification of the Treaty.

1.
This Opinion is a contribution to the evaluation
of the first European Employment Guidelines and
national employment action plans and offers some
practical ideas for full cooperation of all Community
players in promoting employment as a policy priority
within the Union.

2.
The Amsterdam Summit agreed to add a new Title
on employment to the Treaty. The key result of this is
that employment is recognized now not only as a policy
objective, but also as a matter of common concern for
the European Union.

3.
Recognizing the common concern, specific mech-
anisms have been introduced to coordinate the actions
of the Member States in employment policy. These are
implemented mainly through the adoption of annual
Employment Guidelines, which set the priorities for the
Union’s employment policy, and through the evaluation
of national employment action plans (NAPs), which
Member States devise according to the priorities.

4.
The Community also has a mandate to support,
and if necessary, to complement the actions of the
Member States — the Council in Amsterdam also agreed
that this new Title will have immediate effect i.e. it

5.
The first Guidelines were adopted by the Council
on 15 December 1997, following the Luxembourg
Employment Summit. The Guidelines are based on the
four pillars:

— Improving employability (including training and
lifelong learning and shifting people from welfare
dependency to work through an active labour-market
policy);

— Developing entrepreneurship (including encouraging
businesses to develop by easing the tax burden,
reducing overhead
promoting self-employment,
costs, promoting job creation in the social economic
and at the local level);

— Encouraging adaptability in businesses and their
employees (including modernization of the organ-
ization of work by social partners, responding to
diverse forms of employment through adaptable
contracts with security, developing in-house training
and investment in human resources);

— Strengthening the policies for equal opportunities
(including tackling gender gaps, reconciling work
and family life, reintegration into the labour market
and integrating people with disabilities into working
life);

C 51/60

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

22.2.1999

6.
The current four-pillar structure of the Guidelines
— employability, entrepreneurship, adaptability and
equal opportunities — will continue to provide the basis
for next year’s Guidelines.

The Commission however identifies in the Communi-
cation a number of weaknesses in the 1998 Guidelines
and a need for further clarification. The principal
changes are:

— More emphasis on active measures

(Am. 3 ) and play a part in the forthcoming debates
about the 1999 Employment Guidelines.

11.
Finally, the COR wishes to make some recommen-
dations to help local and regional authorities (1) to be a
full and active partner in the consultation process and
implementation of the national employment action
plans,
in particular suggesting a Local Action for
Employment initiative. This will involve action at both
local and regional level.

— Strengthening IT skills and easier access for older
emphasis on Lifelong

through more

workers
Learning

— Creating a labour market open to all by broadening
the 1998 Guideline on the need for greater integration
to include not just people with disabilities, but other
groups such as ethic minorities and placing it under
the employability pillar

— Exploiting the dynamic jobs potential of the services

sector

— Reconciling work and family life — strengthening the
Guidelines on affordable, accessible and high-quality
child-care and flexible working conditions.

Horizontal changes, which do not require changes
in specific Guidelines but which are issues that the
Commission argues Member States should consider in
implementation of the NAPs, include promoting local
development. The Commission states that the role and
responsibilities of partners at the regional and local
levels need to be more fully recognised. It states that
since all jobs are created at a local level, regional and
local authorities have an important role in ensuring
supportive conditions. They must therefore be encour-
aged to design and implement strategies for ‘development
and job creation.’ (Am. 6)

7.
The COR has a competency to act in this matter,
and wishes to prepare its contribution to the debate
before the formal consultation concerning the next
annual Employment Guidelines at the December Summit
in Vienna.

8. On 13 May 1998, the European Commission
adopted a Communication on the national employment
action plans, From Guidelines to Action: The National
Action Plans for Employment.

9.
As a result of the new competencies designed for
the Committee of the Regions in the Amsterdam Treaty,
the COR wishes also to issue this Opinion to respond
to the aforementioned Communication.

B. Role of local and regional authorities in generating

employment

12.
Local and regional authorities play a crucial role
in generating employment. As major employers; through
their involvement and competences in the development
of
the local and regional economy; through their
responsibilities, where appropriate, in the employment
services; and with their sound knowledge of the local
situation, in particular by promoting social inclusion.
They are best placed to stimulate job creation and
contribute in the promotion of new types of work,
linked to the development of services also as a result of
the increasing privatization of the sector. They can take
the local economic and infrastructural
account of
conditions, and the labour-market situation.

Since the 1970s local and regional authorities
13.
have had to respond to industrial restructuring in their
area. Indeed some states such as Germany have been
involved since the 1920s restructuring of the coal
industry. As actors in economic development attracting
inward investment and as developers of economic and
social partnerships to promote employment, they play
a significant role in stimulating the creation of employ-
ment.

The Commission Communication on the national
employment action plans

14.
After examination of the Member States’ national
employment action plans (NAPs), the Commission, (in
its communication From Guidelines to Action) made
clear the varying degrees in which local and regional
partners were involved both in consultation and
implementation of the NAPs. The Commission said
some of the NAPs were designed with the explicit

10.
The COR wishes to demonstrate its full support
for the coordinated European Employment Strategy,
which is the responsibility of national governments

(1) In this context the COR underline particularly the import-
ance of the commitment of elected local and regional
bodies.

22.2.1999

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 51/61

participation of local and regional partners. Others
mentioned measures that would be taken directly by
local and regional authorities, and some only referred
in passing to local and regional players.

authorities to enable it to carry out its new competencies
concerning employment under the Amsterdam Treaty.

Consultation of local and regional authorities for the
NAPs

15.
Although in its Communication, the Commission
congratulated the Member States for pursuing an inclus-
ive strategy, the COR (following a review of national
local authority associations in the Member States) would
like to emphasize that the NAPs were not in practice
fully open to scrutiny in every Member State. The COR
asks the Member States of the European Union to
incorporate the local and regional view when drawing
up the NAPs.

Role of local and regional authorities in the implemen-
tation of the national employment action plans

16.
The Commission’s Communication also referred
to the clear recognition as a result of the initial evaluation
of the NAPs of the need for a stronger local dimension
in employment policy. The Communication recognizes
the varying degrees of decentralization and autonomy
at the local level across the Member States, but suggests
that there should be a greater integration of local
initiatives in the future Guidelines and NAPs.

17.
The COR supports the commission’s analysis.
The COR suggests the establishment of an initiative,
Local Action for Employment 1999, to urge local and
regional authorities to strive to ensure the guidelines are
respected in the areas for which they have competence
(Am. 2 modif.) .

The Communication and the future Guidelines

18.
The Commission’s Communication referred to
several areas, which need further development in the
forthcoming Employment Guidelines 1999. One of the
areas concerns the following: ‘The strengthening of the
local dimension of the employment strategy, where the
Member States need to integrate local initiatives and
new sources of work in the social economy within an
overall development strategy and the development of
integrated and sustained development strategies at the
local level by local actors;’

19.
The COR believes that its suggested initiative
‘Local Action for Employment 1999’ can play a strong
role in strengthening the local dimension for the employ-
that
strategy. The COR believes however,
ment
resources must be made available to local and regional

‘Local Action for Employment 1999’

20.
The COR proposes an initiative to enable local
and regional authorities to promote the national employ-
ment action plans.

21.
The initiative, possibly called ‘Local Action for
Employment 1999’, could be promoted through national
local authority associations, and through pan-European
networks. Although the COR itself does not have a
direct and active role in the implementation of the
NAPS, individual local and regional authorities, and
pan-European networks of local and regional authorities
and national local and regional authority associations
(Am. 14) are able to take on this function.

22.
The initiative would provide a mechanism where-
by local and regional authorities could be encouraged
to commit themselves to the four strands of the current
Employment Guidelines.

The COR believes the effects of this initiative

23.
would include:

— leverage for national local and regional authority
associations to have discussions with their Member
State governments about the next Employment
Guidelines;

— by committing local and regional authorities to the
national employment plans, it would be a means to
increase scrutiny of the plans within Member States;

— helping the local and regional priorities to be
recognized more clearly, as these partners would
know and understand the processes, and would
undertake monitoring and evaluation of future needs
and prioritize in much greater detail.

24.
The COR invites the Commission to investigate
the possibility of supporting to an extent the two parts
of the Local Action for Employment 99 initiative through
the European Social Fund or with funds earmarked for
the territorial employment pacts. (Am. 12 modif.). It
proposes the establishment of two sub-schemes to
underpin the local and regional commitment to the
NAPS, via the Local Action for Employment 99:

1) The utilization of existing schemes and the establish-
ment of a new short-term exchange scheme for local
level officers and elected members
and regional

C 51/62

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

22.2.1999

working in comparable fields of employment gener-
ation with specific focus on local actions which may
aid the implementation of the Guidelines. Individuals
from different Member States would be able to stay
for several weeks at a time to try and understand
different local approaches to employment promotion
in other countries. These exchanges will help to
identify and promote best practice initiatives for
bench-marking exercises (Am. 1)

2) The establishment of Prizes for ‘Employment Leader’,
to enable cities or regions to be held up as landmarks
of employment promotion. The criteria by which
regions and cities could be selected could include the
level, success and initiative shown in the implemen-
tation of the four strands of the current Employment
Guidelines.

The information and examples collected by these two
initiatives could be made available to the general public
by the Commission, via its Internet site.

The initiative, possibly called ‘Local Action for
25.
Employment 1999’ would be a useful mechanism to
ensure that the European Union’s priority for employ-
ment promotion and generation is explicitly supported
at the local level.

26.
The COR believes that employment is stimulated
at the local level, and not just by commitments to broad
national and European policy promises. The COR urges
the Commission to continue its drive to supporting local
initiatives to generate employment.

27.
‘Local Action for Employment 1999’ could be
promoted by the COR, the Commission and via the
European local and regional networks and the national
local authority associations. (Am. 16)

C. Conclusion and Recommendations

employment action plans, and in the implementation of
the plans.

29.
The COR welcomes the increased recognition by
the Commission (in its Preamble to the proposals for
1999 Employment Guidelines) of local and regional
authorities’ role and responsibilities in creating jobs at
the local level.

30.
The COR asks the Member States of the European
Union to ensure that all partners in all Member States
can participate in the drawing-up of the NAPs; this will
initiatives to promote
strengthen local and regional
employment. (Am. 8)

31.
The COR believes that the relationship of the
NAPs to the new Objective 3 framework is crucial, and
supports the Commission’s recommendation for greater
integration of Objective 3, European Social Fund and
national employment action plans.

Skills development is important to local and
32.
regional employers. It is needed to allow enterprises to
grow and to enable employees to cope with change, thus
indirectly preventing unemployment and marginal-
ization. (Am. 4)

33.
The Committee of the Regions would emphasize
the equal opportunities aspects of employment guide-
lines related issues. (Am. 5)

34.
The COR offers the following practical sugges-
tions to reinforce the employment Guidelines and to aid
local and regional
involvement in consultation and
implementation of the national employment action
plans:

— it urges local and regional authorities to strive to
ensure — via the Local Action for Employment 1999
— that the guidelines are respected in the areas for
which they have competence (Am. 3 modif.);

28.
The COR fully supports the European Employ-
ment Strategy and the Employment Guidelines. It wants
to play a full role in both consultation on the national

— to submit this Opinion to the Council at the Vienna
Summit in December 1998 in the context of its debate
around the draft Employment Guidelines 1999.

Brussels, 19 November 1998.

The President

of the Committee of the Regions

Manfred DAMMEYER