2.European Parliament resolution on the Commission communication on the Joint Employment Report 2000 (COM(2000) 551 — C5-0504/2000 — 2000/2239(COS))
Date: 2000-10-24
Institutions: European Parliament
Subjects: EU policy, European Employment Strategy, labour market, social policy

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2.
European Parliament resolution on the Commission communication on the Joint Employment
Report 2000 (COM(2000) 551 (cid:30) C5-0504/2000 (cid:30) 2000/2239(COS))

Tuesday 24 October 2000

The European Parliament,

(cid:1) having regard to the Commission communication (COM(2000) 551 (cid:1) C5-0504/2000),

(cid:1) having regard to the proposal for a Council Decision on Guidelines for Member States’ employment

policies for the year 2001 (COM(2000) 548 (cid:1) C5-0491/2000 (cid:1) 2000/0225(CNS)),

(cid:1) having regard to the draft recommendations to the Member States,

(cid:1) having regard to the mid-term review of the guidelines,

(cid:1) having regard to the conclusions of the Lisbon European Council of 23/24 March 2000,

(cid:1) having regard to Council Decision 2000/228/EC of 13 March 2000 on guidelines for Member States’

employment policies for the year 2000 (1),

(cid:1) having regard to Parliament’s amendments to the Commission proposal for Guidelines for Member

States’ employment policies 2000 (COM(1999) 441 (cid:1) C5-0147/1999 (cid:1) 1999/0816(CNS)) (2),

(cid:1) having regard to the Commission communication ‘Social Policy Agenda’ (COM(2000) 379),

(cid:1) having regard to the Commission communication ‘Community policies in support of employment’

(COM(2000) 78),

(cid:1) having regard to Council Directive 1999/85/EC of 22 October 1999, amending Directive 77/388/EEC
as regards the possibility of applying on an experimental basis a reduced VAT rate on labour-intensive
services (3),

(cid:1) having regard to Rule 47(1) and Rule 62 of its Rules of Procedure,

(cid:1) having regard to the report of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the opinions of
the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities and of the Committee on Economic and
Monetary Affairs (A5-0295/2000),

A. whereas the Commission has adopted and forwarded to Parliament the ‘employment package’, namely
the proposal for a Council decision on Guidelines for Member States’ employment policies for the year
2001, the Joint Employment Report 2000 and the proposal for recommendations to the Member
States; whereas Parliament considers that the three documents must be considered together to ensure
that they are consistent in policy terms and to this end has drawn up the overall resolution which
follows,

B. whereas rationalisation is required in the procedures for the employment guidelines, the European
social agenda, the broad guidelines for the economic policies of the Member States, the report on
structural reforms, the macro-economic dialogue and the annual meeting of the European Council
provided for in the Lisbon Summit conclusions, in order to ensure consistency with regard to eco-
nomic, employment and social policies,

C. whereas, in this regard, an ‘annual report on the economic and social state of the European Union’
should be drawn up, to include the Commission’s analyses published in the annual economic report,
the report on employment and the reports on competition, economic reforms and the state of SMEs,

(1) OJ L 72, 21.3.2000, p. 15.
(2) OJ C 158, 7.6.2000, p. 36.
(3) OJ L 277, 28.10.1999, p. 34.

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D. whereas, in addition, the participation of the Employment and Social Affairs Council in drawing up
the broad macro-economic guidelines and, at the same time, of the ‘Ecofin’ Council in drawing up the
employment guidelines could lead to added value in synergies and consistency between the EU’s eco-
nomic and employment policies; requesting, further, that Parliament’s powers to intervene, propose
and monitor should be generally consolidated and extended in that area (by means of formal institu-
tional agreements as well),

E. welcoming the Commission’s proposal, further to the Lisbon conclusions, to stipulate that the Member
States should set national targets for raising the employment rate, so as to enable the European target
of an overall employment rate of 70 % with a rise to at least 60 % in the employment rate for women
to be achieved by 2010,

F. whereas the Commission has stated the need to speed up action by the Member States, in cooperation
with regional and local authorities and social partners, to improve the efficiency and quality of educa-
tion and training systems, to gear them more closely to the labour market’s requirements for profes-
sional skills and the qualification standards required by the development of the information society,

G.

regarding it as essential to create and consolidate at all levels (European, national, regional and local)
extremely broad and accountable methods of cooperating with the social partners to implement,
monitor and follow up the employment strategy,

H. whereas in spite of a context of average employment growth there is a considerable imbalance, as the
Commission emphasises, between geographical areas, whereas the labour markets face the risk of a
dual structure, where, on the one hand, there are problems with lack of qualification or labour
shortages in certain sectors or regions and bottlenecks, stress and burnout reactions and excessive
overtime work, and, on the other, problems with precarious low-quality jobs, social exclusion and
unemployment, and whereas a long-term, continuous strategy therefore needs to be adopted in order
to eliminate the contradictions and bottlenecks found in the labour market,

I.

considering, on this point, that support and incentive measures should be established to promote
geographic mobility, without prejudice to the priority of initiatives designed to attract productive
investment and thereby to promote economic balance and social cohesion in less-developed areas.
This will require the necessary investment to be made in the fields of infrastructure, SME support,
research and training and retraining of workers, and the social security contributions and taxation
burden on employment to be restricted,

J. whereas it would also be advisable to respond to labour shortage problems by encouraging moves to
regularise the status of immigrants, together with any appropriate investments in training and specia-
lisation,

K. whereas the Commission has stated the need to step up action by Member States to reduce the fiscal
pressure and the direct and indirect tax burden on employment, as far as is compatible with financial
equilibrium in public finance and social insurance and security systems, e.g. by making Directive
1999/85/EC on the reduction of VAT on labour-intensive services more generally applicable,

L. whereas strategies, action plans, national targets established at Member State level and specific follow-
up instruments need to be defined across all pillars and guidelines of the European Employment Strat-
egy to combat all forms of discrimination in access to the labour market and training opportunities.
Also to ensure the integration of groups and individuals who are disadvantaged or at risk of exclusion,
such as disabled people, older people, ethnic minorities and immigrants,

Guidelines for 2001

1.
Approves the prospect of full employment as a priority goal for Europe’s economic, employment and
social policy strategy and emphasises that in order to achieve this not only is full and effective implemen-
tation of the policies grouped under the four pillars of the Luxembourg process required, but this should

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be complemented by an effective and consistent mix of macro-economic policies, progress in structural
reforms, investment in training, research and innovation for systematic competitiveness and governments
that are active in the social field, developing human resources and policies for social inclusion and solidar-
ity;

2.
Reaffirms the need to stimulate and encourage increased access to intermediate and higher levels of
education and training, and also to develop effective and consistent strategies for enabling lifelong training
opportunities; to this end once again emphasises the need to set both national and European quantitative
and qualitative targets and to formulate effective instruments and procedures for monitoring the progress
made towards this goal;

3. While acknowledging that unemployment benefit systems are essential, proposes that the deadline
within which Member States are required to guarantee unemployed individuals a chance to access an
active employment measure should not exceed two years from the adoption of the current guidelines
and that Member States should be given suitable guidelines setting out clearer deadlines and follow-up
instruments. With this in mind, public-sector job placement bodies are in need of structural reform and
staff training measures, and cooperation with private-sector operators providing job placement and voca-
tional retraining services must be stepped up, with due regard for quality standards;

4.
Agrees with the proposal in the Guidelines to promote and give incentives for older workers to
remain in or rejoin the labour market, using a coordinated package of instruments, such as: the opportu-
nity to have access to continuing training and initiatives aimed at retraining; the introduction of suitable
changes to tax systems, and incentives; experimentation with agreed flexible working arrangements and the
introduction of the opportunity to move towards retirement gradually, via part-time work, on a voluntary
basis;

Stresses the need to improve the effectiveness and quality of education systems not least within the

5.
perspective of lifelong learning through encouraging Member States to:

(a) discourage children from dropping out of school early, by giving appropriate support to those with
learning difficulties, raising the age for compulsory education or training to 18, and by allocating an
appropriate financial resources contribution (both public and private) for continuing training,

(b) guarantee effective access to education and training, targeted and geared to the poorest and most

vulnerable sections of society,

(c)

(d)

(e)

ensure the effectiveness and quality of training linked to joint work/training contracts or completed
under special working circumstances (work placements, apprenticeships,
joint work/training con-
tracts),

increase the quantity and improve the quality of adult education opportunities for occupational
change and sectoral mobility,

ensuring that the other specific measures and quantitative targets proposed by the Commission are
adopted, especially those in guideline No 4;

6.
Considers it necessary to promote and encourage observatories and suitable research programmes at
national, regional and local levels to highlight professional skills requirements in different sectors and
regions, taking into consideration technological and production innovation processes, with the greatest
possible collaboration with the social partners;

Considers, with regard to the entrepreneurship pillar, that there should be more precise definition of

7.
measures aimed at:

(a)

(b)

combating all forms of illegal, irregular or underground business activity or work, by strengthening
legal sanctions, and also by means of appropriate support and incentive measures aimed at the regu-
larisation of such work and by making good use of action by social forces on this point,

taking initiatives to promote and encourage the employment potential of the services sector, for both
traditional and non-traditional services, business activities and personal services;
in other words,
investing in significant areas of innovative business activity and potential job-creating sources (with
regard in particular to the environmental sector, conservation, security at work and the development
of the information society), and to encourage by means of appropriate taxation and legislative mea-
sures the development of the tertiary sector, especially in the field of personal services,

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(c)

the Member States taking consistent action to place increased importance on the roles and responsi-
bilities of both institutional and social local players, in the context of development plans and projects
and local job-creation. At this level it is even more important to endeavour to have a coordinated
intervention strategy to support productive investment, especially for SMEs; designed to reduce
bureaucratic hold-ups and inappropriate burdens: committed to enhancing active employment policies
and targeted professional training and requalification procedures, focused on enhancing the roles and
contributions of social partners in reshaping the industrial relations system and to experimentation
with flexibility, within agreed limits, promoting the development of business activity and employment;

Recalls the important role of the EIB in supporting growth and employment in particular by venture

8.
capital operations of SMEs, investments in new and environment-friendly technologies;

9.
Points to the contribution that a reorganisation of financial markets can make to expanding employ-
ment by making more risk capital available to SMEs which, in addition, must be relieved of bureaucratic,
legal, and fiscal obstacles;

10.
Considers it vital to encourage, foster and develop negotiations between the social partners and
formulate agreements for modernising the way work is structured, to meet the productivity and competi-
tiveness challenges which enterprises face, to raise the quality of work and increase its security and to
ensure that the surplus from growth can be fairly distributed between profits, pay, innovation and a higher
level of employment (both in quantitative and qualitative terms);

11. Within the framework of the open coordination strategy initiated by the Luxembourg process and
while observing the subsidiarity principle, urges appropriate action by the Member States to put into prac-
tice Council Directive 94/45/EC of 22 September 1994 on the establishment of a European Works Council
or a procedure in Community-scale undertakings and Community-scale groups of undertakings for the
purposes of informing and consulting employees (1) and update the basic legislative framework, guarantee-
ing the legislative support needed to develop bargaining on flexibility within agreed limits, working hours
policy policy (reduction and reorganisation of working hours; reduction of overtime; overtime compensa-
tion and stored overtime credit systems; training leave and parental leave) and the development and reg-
ulation of new forms of employment;

12.
Calls on the Commission, the Council, the Social Protection Committee and the Member States to
set to work, within the framework of the open coordination strategy, on guidelines for combating social
exclusion with the aims, inter alia, of adopting policy measures to tackle social exclusion on the labour
market and of selecting employment measures that are such as to promote social inclusion;

13.
Calls on the Council to recognise domestic work performed by third persons in private households
as an employment sector, as recognition implies the adoption of rules governing the social rights of
employees, regulation of supply and demand in the sector, opportunities for training and public-sector
contributions in respect of fiscal and parafiscal charges;

14.
Considers that the results achieved in implementing the policies grouped under the fourth pillar, on
equal opportunities for men and women, are still inadequate, particularly considering that many of the
new female jobs are part-time, of short duration and low quality, and that in some countries improve-
ments have been totally insufficient.

There is a particular need to boost initiatives and measures designed to:

(a)

reduce gender gaps with regard to employment, unemployment, pay and sectoral segregation by 50 %
in the Member States in the next five years. In order to achieve this it is necessary to have statistics on
employment broken down by gender and sector; therefore calls on the Commission and the Member
States to define more precisely agreed criteria and benchmarks for employment, the implementation
and the assessment of the principle of gender mainstreaming in each sector of Community and Mem-
ber States’ policies,

(1) OJ L 254, 30.9.1994, p. 64.

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(b) guarantee women access to active policies for work, in proportion to the unemployment rate for

women,

(c) abolish tax and benefit disincentives which have a negative impact on women’s participation in the
labour force, and reduce tax pressure on employment and non-salary employment costs; points out
the need to support women who wish to set up their own businesses or become self-employed both
in the private sector and in the social economy, both by promoting the education and training of
female entrepreneurs and by reducing tax and benefit obstacles. It is necessary in addition to turn to
good account, by means of tax incentives, the positive experiences gained by undertakings with
family-friendly policies;

(d) achieve equal pay for equal work by means of more specific policies and with the involvement and
more active participation of the social partners. For this purpose Eurostat should draw up and publish
at regular intervals statistics on pay levels subdivided by gender for each sector and occupation,

(e)

encourage the Member States and the social partners to draw up and implement family-friendly poli-
cies by creating high-quality and accessible services for the care of children and other dependants; for
this purpose points out the need for the Member States to lay down national targets aimed at reaching
within the next five years the average level of the three Member States with the best performance in
that sector,

(f)

take account of the requirements relating to the health of pregnant women, both before and after
childbirth;

Procedures and current state of implementation

15.
Stresses the need for more policy coordination and for a comprehensive partnership involving all
the relevant social actors also in the Member States in preparing, implementing and evaluating the impact
of the Luxembourg strategy and by ensuring greater engagement of civil society and greater opportunity
for informed participation by citizens;

16.
Suggests that at all levels (Community, national and local) checks should be made to ensure that the
budget policies adopted are consistent with the strategies and priorities laid down by the employment
guidelines, in order to translate agreed targets, commitments and measures into appropriate budget alloca-
tions, possibly on a multi-annual basis;

17.
At the same time considers that the contributions of other intervention instruments, particularly the
structural funds and Community initiatives, need to be incorporated into a coherent strategic perspective;

18.
Agrees on the need to formulate and adopt joint comparable indicators, in order to put in place
homogeneous and effective statistical reporting systems and to assess the impact of the actions undertaken.
This objective is also a basic requirement for sustaining benchmarking projects and facilitating the identi-
fication and exchange of best practices at all possible levels;

19.
Draws particular attention to the convenience of including the Ecofin Council, as well as the
Employment and Social Affairs Council in the preparation of the first European Council ‘spring session’
on economic and employment strategies and policies;

20.
Is deeply concerned at the suggested way of implementation of the Lisbon ‘open method of co-
ordination’ aimed at ensuring close co-operation between the various Council formations and between
the Council Presidency and the Commission;
insists that the position of the European Parliament be
respected in this framework through an inter-institutional agreement between the Council, Commission
and Parliament, to ensure that the follow-up to the Lisbon strategy is not carried out on a purely inter-
governmental basis;

21.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission.

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