European Parliament resolution on the Commission's EURES activity report 1998-1999 entitled ‘Towards an integrated European labour market: the contribution of EURES’ (COM(2000) 607 — C5-0104/2001 — 2001/2053(COS))
Date: 2001-05-31
Institutions: European Parliament
Subjects: EURES, European Employment Strategy, activity report, cross-border cooperation, employment policy, employment service, labour market

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Requests that adequate budgetary means be made avaliable for actions implementing the future

49.
sustainable development strategy and the Cardiff environmental integration process;

Calls for the introduction of a binding environmental impact assessment for all decisions and legis-

50.
lative proposals by the European Commission and publication of the results;

51. Will regularly monitor the progress in the implementation of sustainability in EU policies, i.e. invol-
ving each parliamentary committee in a yearly sustainability assessment exercise on the policies on which
it is competent for;

Instructs its President to review Parliament(cid:146)s own methods of working with a view to devising

52.
working practices which promote sustainable development;

53.

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

12. Commission: EURES activity report 1998-1999: (cid:145)Towards an integrated Euro-

pean labour market: the contribution of EURES(cid:146)

A5-0169/2001

European Parliament resolution on the Commission(cid:146)s EURES activity report 1998-1999 entitled
(cid:145)Towards an integrated European labour market: the contribution of EURES(cid:146) (COM(2000) 607 (cid:129)
C5-0104/2001 (cid:129) 2001/2053(COS))

The European Parliament,

(cid:129) having regard to the Commission report (COM(2000) 607 (cid:129) C5-0104/2001),

(cid:129) having regard to the Memorandum of Understanding adopted by the directors of the EEA public

employment services on the development of EURES services,

(cid:129) having regard to the Commission communication setting out (cid:145)An action plan for free movement of

workers(cid:146) (COM(1997) 586),

(cid:129) having regard to the Commission communication to the Council entitled (cid:145)New European Labour Mar-

kets, Open to All, with Access for All(cid:146) (COM(2001) 116),

(cid:129) having regard to Presidency conclusions 12 to 15, which were adopted at the Stockholm European

Council of 23/24 March 2001,

(cid:129) having regard to Articles 39 and 40 of the EC Treaty,

(cid:129) having regard to Article 251 of the EC Treaty,

(cid:129) having regard to Article 299(2) of the EC Treaty,

(cid:129) having regard to its resolution of 13 April 2000 on the communication from the Commission to the

European Parliament and the Council: The Strategy for Europe(cid:146)s Internal Market (1),

(cid:129) having regard to Rule 47(1) of its Rules of Procedure,

(cid:129) having regard to the report of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (A5-0169/2001),

A. whereas the Commission(cid:146)s report on EURES in 1998 and 1999 amounts more to pure description
than critical review in the proper sense and whereas future reports would be greatly improved if:

(cid:129) they set out an exhaustive factual basis for the conclusions as a whole and the main assessments,

(cid:129) they gave comprehensible reasons for the changes in the priorities that had been or were to be

pursued,

(1) OJ C 40, 7.2.2001, p. 465.

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(cid:129) contained more statistical and other qualitative information of use for the purposes of analysing
and identifying the features of both the position regarding EURES as such and the labour mobility
situation in the EEA,

(cid:129) adopted a standard form of presentation and analysis when discussing the EURES budget, thus
making it possible to ascertain whether and how far implementation of the budget had duly
accorded with the scale of priorities laid down,

B. having regard to the role which, in line with the decisions taken at the Lisbon European Council
(March 2000) (cid:129) and underpinned by the plan submitted to and approved by the Stockholm European
Council (March 2001) (cid:129) to remove the obstacles to labour mobility in the EU by 2005, the EURES
network must play as part of the European employment strategy and to its potentially great usefulness
as a means of promoting mobility on the European labour market, training of workers, and local
development,

C. whereas a high level of mobility on the labour market is not an end in itself and whereas Community
policies in this area and also EURES cooperation must be strictly and rigorously based on the principle
of voluntary mobility;

D.

renewing its proposal that the EURES network should be expanded to become a Europe-wide employ-
ment service,

E. whereas the smooth functioning of the EURES network depends to a large extent on the operational

efficiency and the flexibility of the Member States(cid:146) public employment services,

F. whereas EURES activities are proving particularly successful in border regions where EURES-T part-
ners, via their dedicated Euroadvisers, respond directly both to enquiries from cross-border workers
regarding living and working conditions and opportunities and to requests from employers;

G. whereas the EURES-T partners play an active role in devising joint strategies designed to create local
jobs and in strengthening the dialogue between employers and their staff by directly involving repre-
sentatives of the social partners,

H. whereas, however, despite this success as regards cross-border mobility, there are still border regions

in the EU that are not covered by any form of EURES-T partnership arrangement,

I.

having regard to the outcome of EURES placement activity (in 1999 EURES enabled 44 460 job
seekers to find work in a partner country other than their own),

J. whereas the numbers of vacancies in the EURES database, whether broken down by country or sector,

do not reflect the size of the corresponding labour markets,

K. whereas the Commission report reveals very marked and worrying disparities in the contributions of
the different Member States to the EURES facility, for some countries are manifestly underrepresented
(which makes it obvious that certain Member States have a greater interest in EURES than others), and
also shows that employers(cid:146) organisations are hardly involved at all,

L. whereas in reality, the public seem to have very little knowledge of the EURES network as such, a
point which may apply more to some Member States than to others, or of the services that EURES can
provide directly to ordinary citizens,

M.

renewing its call to investigate and remove all obstacles related to social security systems, salary
deductions, education, training and the recognition of skills, diplomas and qualifications that have
the effect of restricting mobility from one Member State to another,

N. whereas the special strategic importance of online access to EURES via the Internet is clearly under-
lined by the fact that this form of contact, which was increasingly used in 1998 and 1999, helps to
create a direct service to citizens that should be supported and genuinely opened up to all,

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O. whereas new Member States will soon be joining the EU, posing new challenges to labour mobility
within Europe, both at transnational and (cid:129) especially (cid:129) at cross-border level; whereas EURES too
must be prepared in advance to meet those challenges,

P. whereas the agreement between the EU and Switzerland concerning the free movement of persons
(Article 11 of Annex I) provides for cooperation within the EURES framework and whereas such
cooperation must be implemented,

Q. whereas the Commission has announced that it will be drawing up a new legal basis for EURES, due

to be adopted in 2002,

Points to the important role of the EURES network as an instrument within the European employ-
1.
ment strategy as a means of implementing that strategy; calls on the Commission to incorporate EURES
and the EURES-T partners systematically and in a consistent, coordinated fashion into the European
employment strategy and into the various implementation levels thereof (national plans, regional agree-
ments and future local agreements); considers, therefore, that the legal basis should also be extended to the
relevant provisions of the Treaty;

2. Maintains that future reports would be improved if they contained more statistical and other quali-
tative information needed in order to analyse and diagnose problems on the one hand and provide critical
assessment and explanation on the other, for instance, as regards:

(cid:129) the labour mobility situation at transnational and cross-border level, under and outside the EURES

system;

(cid:129) the evenness of the balance of representation among the Member States and the extent to which the

EURES facility is geared to production sectors;

(cid:129) the permanence and the basic characteristics of the contracts for the jobs made accessible by means of

the EURES network;

(cid:129) assessment of the impact of EURES on the European employment strategy, in particular at local level

thanks to the EURES-T parternships;

Recommends to the Commission that future reports include a summary list of the main obstacles to
3.
cross-border and transnational mobility to have emerged in the light of experience with EURES, particu-
larly on the basis of the direct experience acquired by Euroadvisers, and assess the trends likely to affect
them;

Calls on the Commission to consider whether EURES might be made more widely accessible where

4.
both job requests and job offers are concerned;

5.
Calls on European employment services and members of the EURES network to expand their activ-
ities with a view to providing their services throughout the EU and calls, therefore, on all the public
employment services belonging to the network to arrange for vacancies and, later, the curricula vitae of
job seekers to be input directly to the EURES database;

Calls on the Commission to ensure that the jobs database is more commensurate with the size of the

6.
labour markets in the respective member countries;

7.
Calls on the Commission to consider whether it might take steps to improve the performance of
EURES in general and EURES-T in particular in some areas, for instance as regards links with other Com-
imbalances, and the degree of involvement of employers(cid:146)
munity programmes, correction of national
organisations, in order to provide the basis for a review at the end of the 2000/2001 and 2002/2003
periods;

Points out that, given the success achieved at cross-border level, the Commission should endeavour

8.
to ensure that all border areas are fully covered by EURES-T partnerships;

9.
Considers that the contribution made by the EURES-T steering committees to the monitoring of the
activities undertaken in their area under the Interreg programme must be increased and that the local
authorities in border regions should involve themselves in EURES-T initiatives;

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Calls for adequate continuity in the provision of services by the EURES advisers and therefore

10.
supports the Commission(cid:146)s ideas that multi-annual funding should be provided for EURES projects;

Thursday 31 May 2001

Intends to organise a hearing with the EURES advisers in order to gain a clearer idea of the bottle-

11.
necks in the organisation of the EURES system and the problems in border regions;

Stresses the importance, in the creation of European employment markets, of establishing cross-

12.
border platforms for social dialogue in border areas;

13. Welcomes the first moves towards decentralisation in the management of EURES-T as regards the
steering committees of the respective partners; considers that decentralisation should be completed in the
above area and adopted as a guiding principle for the EURES network as a whole;

14.
Urges the Member States to strive for rapid improvements in the relationships between their respec-
tive public employment services and with regard to the tasks and objectives of the EURES network, in
accordance with the November 1998 protocol agreement between the EEA(cid:146)s of public employment ser-
vices with a view to development of the EURES network;

15.
Urges the Commission and the PES (public employment services) to recognise the importance of the
European employment market and of the EURES network and to make a substantial joint effort to pub-
licise the EURES service and to devise and implement permanent information systems aimed at the public
relating to the EURES facility; in particular within youth organisations and universities, since mobility
amongst young people at the start of their career is desirable and should receive special attention; calls
on the Commission and the PES to agree on and develop, in association with the media and other private
bodies active in the field of employment supply and demand, permanent arrangements for establishing
links and coordination in connection with the EURES network objectives;

Calls on the Member States to set up, within their respective PES, small EURES network operational
16.
units to which an appropriate number of Euroadvisers would be permanently and exclusively assigned,
thereby ensuring that the EURES network and the relation between the PES achieve professional standards;
notes that a similar procedure, suitably adapted, could also bring benefits if employers(cid:146) and trade-union
organisations decided to adopt it as Euro-advisers belonging to the respective framework;

17. Welcomes the advances in the use of the EURES web site and the plans to improve the related
database; urges the Commission to coordinate its development with the e-Europe action plan and to treat
this new aspect of EURES as a priority, aiming determinedly but pragmatically at:

(cid:129) multilingual content in all the EU(cid:146)s official languages,

(cid:129) easy consultation and searching for any non-expert user (user-friendliness),

(cid:129) accurate and prompt updating;

18.
Calls on the Commission to study the language problems that might hamper job seekers and,
should the need arise, to propose measures to remedy that obstacle; believes that the database must be
made more widely accessible on the Internet and therefore calls on the Commission to consider whether it
might devise standard models for job requests and offers and a basic curriculum vitae, in forms suitable for
multilingual machine translation, without restricting a user(cid:146)s option of adding other information in his or
her national
language; calls on the Commission to ensure that there is effective internal coordination
between the DGs involved;

Considers that the budget allocation for EURES should be increased, not least in preparation for EU

19.
enlargement;

20.
Believes that the priorities to be covered in the budget, in addition to strengthening and developing
the EURES-T partnerships, are promotion and publication of EURES and expansion of the computer sys-
tems (Internet and Intranet); supports the Commission(cid:146)s approach aimed at simplifying the budget pro-
cedures employed for the EURES network and placing them on a multi-annual footing;

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21.

Calls for more attention to be devoted to making EURES known in the Member States;

22.
Calls on the Commission to devote particular attention, within EURES, to the problems of the
outermost regions and for future reports to set out special measures to be taken to tackle their specific
situation;

Urges the Commission to focus in the next report on the matter of enlargement by setting out a
23.
forecast of its impact on EURES, planning for expansion of the EURES-T partnerships, and a list of
measures to be adopted; believes that necessary preparatory measures will need to start in 2002, namely:

(cid:129) regular dialogue with PES, trade unions, and employers(cid:146) organisations in the applicant countries to

familiarise them with EURES in advance;

(cid:129) forward feasibility study on new cross-border partnerships and, for the purposes of preliminary train-
ing, the promotion of direct exchanges of experience between the future staff of those new partner-
ships and those of the most successful current EURES-T partnerships;

(cid:129) training of Euroadvisers in the new Member States and of special (cid:145)Eastern Europe(cid:146) Euroadvisers in all

EU countries;

(cid:129) measures relating to computerised systems, to enable the databases to be linked together quickly;

(cid:129) drawing up of a training atlas to enable job specifications to be harmonised and to provide

information regarding each Member State(cid:146)s rules on the recognition of qualifications;

(cid:129) promoting exchanges of best practices;

24. Welcomes the 23/24 March 2001 Stockholm European Council conclusions on the mobility of
workers, with particular regard to the creation of a single information website on mobility in Europe
which will offer employment services a European database containing vacancies, CVs and education and
training opportunities; calls on the Commission to coordinate EURES with this website and to ensure that
there is effective internal coordination between the DGs involved;

25.
Recommends to the Council that one of the specific tasks to be accomplished by the high-level task
force on skills and mobility which was approved at the Stockholm European Council in accordance with a
Commission proposal should be to submit suggestions and proposals for improving the EURES network
by December 2001; notes that this methodology will help to ensure that the expected conclusions of the
summit to be held in the spring of 2002 include a consistent reform of EURES and is also essential if this
contribution is to be taken into account in the reform of the EURES legal basis which is scheduled for
2002;

26.
Considers that the high-level task force on skills and mobility which has been set up within the
Commission could gather much information in border regions concerning both obstacles to the emergence
of a European employment market and good practical examples, in order to help promote this cross-
border employment market; calls for the EURES network to be involved in such activities and for the
experience gained therefrom to be incorporated into the new EURES programme;

27.
Considers it essential for the European Parliament to be involved in the reform of the EURES legal
basis; takes the view that such a reform must follow the co-decision procedure pursuant to Article 40(a)
and (d) and Article 251 of the EC Treaty; considers that, without pre-empting the debate which should be
held at the appropriate time, modernisation of the EURES legal basis should in particular:

(cid:129) lead to the incorporation of the EURES network into the European employment strategy;

(cid:129) recognise the social partners as full partners in EURES-T;

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(cid:129) clarify and better define the role of Euroadvisers in public employment services, in trade unions and in

employers(cid:146) organisations;

(cid:129) restructure the respective financing bases.

28.
Draws the Commission(cid:146)s attention to the forthcoming report on the implementation of the agree-
ment between the EU and Switzerland on the free movement of persons, with particular reference to the
implementation of Article 11 of Annex I; considers that preparatory measures should be adopted immedi-
ately in order to ensure that EURES-T partnerships are established in good time within the border regions
concerned;

29.
Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and Commission, the parliaments of
the Member States, the other EEA countries which are members of the EURES network, the applicant
countries and Switzerland.