CELEX: 51997PC0676
Language: en
Date: 1997-12-03
Title: Draft resolution of the Council on the 1998 employment guidelines

COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
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                                  Brussels, 03.12.1997
".™H|                             COM(97)676 final
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                          Draft
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              Resolution of the Council
                           on
          The 1998 Employment Guidelines
             (presented by the Commission)
 ---pagebreak---  ---pagebreak---                    Communication of the Commission for a
                         Draft Resolution of the Council
                                       on
                       The 1998 Employment Guidelines
At the Amsterdam summit, the European Council decided to make certain
provisions of the new employment Title of the Treaty immediately effective and
to hold a special summit on employment. Accordingly, the Commission adopted,
on 1 October 1997, a co.mmunication entitled Proposal for Guidelines for
Member States Employment Policies 1998. This communication was addressed
to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee,
and the Committee of the Regions, and it served as a framework for the
discussion prior to the special meeting of the European Council on employment
which took place in Luxembourg on 20/21 November 1997.
In accordance with the agreement reached by the European Council on the
guidelines as set out in the Presidency's Conclusions of the meeting of 20-21
November 1997, the Commission is now presenting a draft resolution of the
Council on the 1998 Employment Guidelines for adoption. The guidelines centre
on four main lines of action: improving employability, developing
entrepreneurship, encouraging adaptability of businesses and their employees,
and strengthening the policies for equal opportunities.     Nineteen specific
guidelines are highlighted.
The Commission undertakes to prepare and submit in due course the reports
requested by the European Council. The Commission will also in due course
make preparations for the submission of the Joint Report to the Vienna
European Council and for the adoption of the 1999 employment guidelines.
 ---pagebreak---                                          Draft
                              Resolution of the Council
                                          on
                         The 1998 Employment Guidelines
 THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
 Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community;
 In accordance with the Resolution of the Amsterdam European Council on
 growth and employment which referred to the procedure as envisaged in the
 new Title on employment in the Treaty and stated that the Council should seek
 to make those provisions immediately effective;
 On the basis of the Conclusions of the extraordinary European Council meeting
 on Employment (20-21 November 1997);
 Having regard to the draft from the Commission and the Commission
 Communication 'Proposal for Guidelines for Member States Employment
 Policies 1998' of 1 October 1997;
 Having regard to the Resolution embodying the contribution of the European
 Parliament to the extraordinary European Council meeting on Employment;
 Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the
Commission Communication;
 Having regard to the contribution of the Committee of the Regions to the
extraordinary European Council meeting on employment;
Having regard to the opinion of the Employment and Labour Market Committee;
Having regard to the opinion of the Economic Policy Committee;
Having regard to the Social Partners' contribution to the extraordinary European
Council meeting on employment;
Whereas the issue of employment is central to the concerns of Europe's citizens
and every effort must be made to combat unemployment, the unacceptable level
of which poses a threat to the cohesion of our societies;
Whereas an overall strategy is required including three aspects:
(1)     the continuation and development of a coordinated macroeconomic
        policy, underpinned by an efficient single market,
(2)     the harnessing of all Community policies in support of employment, and
(3)     the coordination of Member States employment policies based on
        common lines of approach for both objectives and means, with a view to
        converging towards jointly set, verifiable and regularly updated targets,
        which should be incorporated in national employment action plans
        elaborated by Member States;
 ---pagebreak---  Whereas such coordination of Member States' employment policies is to be
 implemented through the adoption of employment guidelines which are
 consistent with the broad economic policy guidelines and which set specific
 targets, the achievement of which is regularly monitored under a common
 procedure for assessing results;
 Whereas the guidelines are based on four main lines of action: improving
 employability, developing entrepreneurship, encouraging adaptability of
 businesses and their employees to enable the labour market to react to
 economic changes, and strengthening the policies for equal opportunities;
Whereas the implementation of the strategy requires the combined efforts of all
 concerned: Member States, regions, social partners and Community institutions,
 and whereas the European Parliament and the European Investment Bank have
 manifested their commitment in that respect;
Whereas the guidelines will have to be incorporated into national employment
action plans so that they are given practical effect in the form of national
objectives which are quantified wherever possible and appropriate, followed by
their transposition into national regulatory, administrative and other measures;
Whereas the national employment action plans will set deadlines for achieving
the desired result in the light, inter alia, of the administrative and financial
resources which can be drawn upon;
Whereas the objective of these measures is to arrive at a significant increase in
the employment rate in Europe on a lasting basis;
Whereas preventive measures are of particular importance to reverse the trend
of youth unemployment and long-term unemployment through early identification
of individual needs and tailor-made responses and whereas active employability
measures are systematically to be given precedence over passive support
measures;
Whereas common indicators, based on comparable statistics, are important for
the effective monitoring and assessment of employment policies and for the
identification of good practices;
HEREBY ADOPTS THIS RESOLUTION
1.   The 1998 Employment Guidelines appended hereto are adopted;
2.   The Member States shall take these Guidelines into account in their
     employment policies;
3.   Each Member State will draw up every year, in a multiannual perspective, a
     national employment action plan in which it will establish its attitude to each
     of the Guidelines, and will send this plan to the Council and the
     Commission, together with a report on the manner of its implementation;
 ---pagebreak--- 4.   The Member States are invited
     a)    to submit their first national employment action plan based on these
           Guidelines to the Council and the Commission in sufficient time
           before the Cardiff European Council;
     b)    to provide the Council and the Commission with an annual report on
           the principal measures taken to implement their employment policies
           in the light of the Guidelines with a view to the joint annual report
           which the Council and the Commission shall make to the European
           Council.
5.  The Council undertakes to
    a)     carry out in the second half of 1998, on the basis of the reports
           referred to in 4.b) an examination of the implementation of the
           employment policies of the Member States in the light of the
           Guidelines;
    b)     prepare jointly with the Commission, on the basis of an initial
           Commission draft, a report on the employment situation in the
           Community and on the implementation of the Guidelines which will be
           submitted to the Vienna European Council;
6. The Council notes that the Commission undertakes to communicate by
    15 October 1998 draft guidelines for Member States employment policies in
   .1999;
7.  The Council affirms that the social partners at all levels have an important
    contribution to make to the implementation of the Guidelines, and that this
    contribution will be regularly assessed, including with the Commission and
    the Council, and in the course of six-monthly meetings with a troika at
    Heads of State and Government level and the Commission.
 ---pagebreak---                  THE 1998 EMPLOYMENT GUIDELINES
 IMPROVING EMPLOYABILITY
 •   Tackling youth unemployment and preventing long-term unemployment
     In order to influence the trend in youth and long-term unemployment
    the Member States will develop preventive and employability-oriented
    strategies, building on the early identification of individual needs;
    within a period to be determined by each Member State which may not
    exceed five years and which may be longer in Member States with
    particularly high unemployment, Member States will ensure that:
    -     every unemployed young person is offered a new start before
          reaching six months of unemployment, in the form of training,
          retraining, work practice, a job or other employability measure;
    -     unemployed adults are also offered a fresh start before reaching
          twelve months of unemployment by one of the aforementioned
         means or, more generally, by accompanying individual vocational
         guidance.
    These preventive and employability measures should be combined
   with measures to promote the re-employment of the long-term
    unemployed.
•   Transition from passive measures to active measures
   Benefit and training systems - where that proves necessary - must be
   reviewed and adapted to ensure that they actively support
   employability and provide real incentives for the unemployed to seek
   and take up work or training opportunities. Each Member State:
   -     will endeavour to increase significantly the number of persons
         benefiting from active measures to improve their employability. In
         order to increase the numbers of unemployed who are offered
         training or any similar measure, it will in particular fix a target, in
         the light of its starting situation, of gradually achieving the average
         of the three most successful Member States, and at least 20%.
•  Encouraging a partnership approach
   The actions of the Member States alone will not suffice to achieve the
   desired results in promoting employability. Consequently
 ---pagebreak---          -     the social partners are urged, at their various levels of
               responsibility and action, to conclude as soon as possible
               agreements with a view to increasing the possibilities for training,
               work experience, traineeships or other measures likely to promote
               employability;
         -     the Member States and the social partners will endeavour to
               develop possibilities for lifelong training.
     •    Easing the transition from school to work
         Employment prospects are poor for young people who leave the school
         system without having acquired the aptitudes required for entering the
        job market. Member States will therefore:
         -    improve the quality of their school systems in order to reduce
              substantially the number of young people who drop out of the
              school system early;
        -     make sure they equip young people with greater ability to adapt to
              technological and economic changes and with skills relevant to the
              labour market, where appropriate by implementing or developing
              apprenticeship training.
II. DEVELOPING ENTREPRENEURSHIP
    •   Making it easier to start up and run businesses by providing a clear,
        stable and predictable set of rules and by improving the conditions for
       the development of risk capital markets. The new facilities offered by
       the EIB combined with the Member States' efforts will enable new
        businesses to be set up more easily. The Member States should also
        reduce and simplify the administrative and tax burdens on small and
       medium-sized enterprises. To that end the Member States will:
       -     give particular attention to reducing significantly the overhead
             costs and administrative burdens for businesses, and especially
             small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular when hiring
             additional workers;
       -     encourage the development of self-employment by examining, with
             the aim of reducing, any obstacles which may exist, especially
             those within tax and social security regimes, to moving to
            self-employment and the setting up of small businesses, in
            particular by employed persons.
 ---pagebreak---       •    Exploiting the opportunities for job creation
           If the European Union wants to deal successfully with the employment
          challenge, all possible sources of jobs and new technologies and
          innovations must be exploited effectively. To that end the Member
          States will:
          -      investigate measures to exploit fully the possibilities offered by job
                 creation at local level, in the social economy and in new activities
                 linked to needs not yet satisfied by the market, and examine, with
                 the aim of reducing, any obstacles in the way of such measures.
      •    Making the taxation system more employment friendly and reversing
          the long-term trend towards higher taxes and charges on labour (which
          have increased from 35% in 1980 to more than 42% in 1995). Each
          Member State will:
          -      set a target, if necessary and taking account of its present level, for
                 gradually reducing the overall tax burden and, where appropriate,
                 a target for gradually reducing the fiscal pressure on labour and
                 non-wage labour costs, in particular on relatively unskilled and low-
                paid labour, without jeopardizing the recovery of public finances or
                 the financial equilibrium of social security schemes.           It will
                 examine, if appropriate, the desirability of introducing a tax on
                 energy or on pollutant emissions or any other tax measure;
         -       examine, without obligation, the advisability of reducing the rate of
                 VAT on labour-intensive services not exposed to cross-border
                competition.
III. ENCOURAGING             ADAPTABILITY         OF   BUSINESSES        AND    THEIR
     EMPLOYEES
     •   Modernizing work organization
     In order to promote the modernization of work organization and forms of
     work:
         -      the social partners are invited to negotiate, at the appropriate
                levels, in particular at sectoral and enterprise levels, agreements to
                modernize the organization of work, including flexible working
                arrangements, with the aim of making undertakings productive and
                competitive and achieving the required balance between flexibility
                and security. Such agreements may, for example, cover the
                expression of working time as an annual figure, the reduction of
                working hours, the reduction of overtime, the development of
                part-time working, lifelong training and career breaks;
 ---pagebreak---          -     for its part, each Member State will examine the possibility of
              incorporating in its law more adaptable types of contract, taking
              into account the fact that forms of employment are increasingly
               diverse. Those working under contracts of this kind should at the
              same time enjoy adequate security and higher occupational status,
              compatible with the needs of business.
     •   Support adaptability in enterprises
         In order to renew skill levels within enterprises Member States will:
        -     re-examine the obstacles, in particular tax obstacles, to investment
              in human resources and possibly provide for tax or other
              incentives for the development of in-house training; they will also
              examine any new regulations to make sure they will contribute to
              reducing barriers to employment and helping the labour market
              adapt to structural change in the economy.
IV. STRENGTHENING THE POLICIES FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES
    •   Tackling gender gaps
        Member States should translate their desire to promote equality of
        opportunity into increased employment rates for women. They should
        also pay attention to the imbalance in the representation of women or
        men in certain economic sectors and occupations. Member States will:
       -     attempt to reduce the gap in unemployment rates between women
             and men by actively supporting the increased employment of
             women and will act to reverse the under-representation of women
             in certain economic sectors and occupations and their
             over-representation in others.
    •   Reconciling work and family life
       Policies on career breaks, parental leave and part-time work are of
       particular importance to women and men. Implementation of the
       various Directives and social-partner agreements in this area should be
       accelerated and monitored regularly. There must be an adequate
       provision of good quality care- for children and other dependents in
       order to support women's and men's entry and continued participation
       in the labour market. The Member States will:
       -     strive to raise levels of access to care services where some needs
             are not currently met.
 ---pagebreak--- Facilitating reintegration into the labour market
The Member States will:
-   give specific attention to women, and men, considering a return to
    the paid workforce after an absence and, to that end, they will
    examine the means of gradually eliminating the obstacles in the
    way of such return.
Promoting the integration of people with disabilities into working life
    The Member States will:
  -   give special attention to the problems people with disabilities may
      encounter in participating in working life.
 ---pagebreak---                                                                    ISSN 0254-1475
                                                            COM(97) 676 final
                                              DOCUMENTS
EN                                                                04 05 10
                                    Catalogue number : CB-CO-97-704-EN-C
                                                             ISBN 92-78-29028-9
Office for Official Publications of the European Communities
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