Brussels, 09/07/2010 (Agence Europe) - Meeting in Brussels on Thursday 8 July under the chairmanship of Belgian's employment minister and deputy prime-minister, Joëlle Milquet, the EU employment ministers discussed the role of employment policy in new economic governance in Europe. The EU27 ministers explained their own analysis and ideas over lunch with the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, who was very open to their suggestions. Van Rompuy pointed out that only economic growth that generated new jobs could help the EU get out of economic crisis, and employment is a crucial lever for competitiveness. Van Rompuy argued that the Employment and Social Affairs Council (EPSCO) should play a greater role in economic governance in the future and had to coordinate better with the ECOFIN Council (of EU economics and finance ministers). He added that the way macroeconomic surveillance interconnects with thematic surveillance had to change. The chair of the European Parliament's employment and social affairs committee, Pervenche Berès, was delighted at his ideas. She had been invited to the meeting of EU ministers and said that Herman Van Rompuy's presence had sent out a very clear message and a very strong symbol because he is the permanent chair of the European Council, and this meeting of employment and social affairs ministers was the first council of EU ministers (as opposed to a European Council of heads of state) that he had attended. The Commission was represented by László Andor.
Pervenche Berès: “The challenge at present is to see what went wrong with the Stability
and Growth Pact since it started back in 1997”
The economic governance taskforce chaired by Herman Van Rompuy is made up of finance ministers, representatives of the European Central Bank (ECB) and representatives of the Commission and it is the economic and financial committee that prepares the taskforce's work, explained Pervenche Berès at a press conference, challenging anyone to claim that employment and social issues were not key to preparing for the taskforce's work. Beyond the symbolism of Van Rompuy attending the EPSCO meeting, Pervenche Berès said she felt the meeting had been very important to get ideas across and have them turned into practice in the taskforce's work, which has been piloting reflection on an issue that has been on the back-burner for 13 years since the Stability and Growth Pact started back in 1997. Pervenche Berès highlighted a key factor that was usually totally ignored back in 1997, namely the risk of gaps in competitiveness arising among the economies of Europe and the emergence of new imbalances within the EU. The French Socialist MEP explained that after ten years of the single currency, it was now clear that gaps in competitiveness had widened and there were imbalances in the eurozone that cannot be sustained forever. Hence the importance of the “consensual” message at lunchtime from Herman Van Rompuy that unemployment is one of the imbalances within the eurozone and within the EU27 as a whole. Pervenche Berès said this means that the question of employment cannot be seen simply as supply and demand. Instead, both supply and demand had to be seen as part of a wider, macroeconomic approach. Jobs should not be seen as a side-effect of a growth strategy whose job-creation capacity is unknown, particularly if one views this from the justified obsession of finance ministers of cutting public deficits and debt. Instead, she said, employment should be seen as a competitiveness and innovation selling point, and unemployment should be seen as a huge cost to society due to lost competitiveness and innovation from workers, and all that represents in terms of lost income for countries' coffers and the huge cost of providing unemployment benefits. Berès said that this was the very strong message relayed to Herman Van Rompuy by the EU's employment and social affairs ministers over lunch. Pervenche Berès stressed the fact that once again, it was not a question of competition between the EPSCO and ECOFIN Councils to be the most important because ordinary people couldn't care less about that. Instead, she said, it was a question of determining what exactly had gone wrong with the Stability and Growth Pact in 1997. She quoted Jacques Delors' comment that employment criteria should have been included in the Stability and Growth Pact but there are still no such criteria 13 years later. The MEP said that there was now the opportunity of making amends. A window of opportunity was open and she hoped the meeting of employment and social affairs ministers would prove very important and useful in building progress in this domain.
Laurette Onkelinx: importance of tenth guideline on social aspects of EU 2020 strategy
On Friday 9 July, the ministers discussed social policy in two workshops. One was chaired by the Belgian social affairs minister, Laurette Onkelinx, and looked at the social side of the new EU 2020 strategy, while the other was chaired by Belgium's pensions minister, Michel Daerden, and looked at pensions and social inclusion, paying particular attention to social welfare systems in the economic crisis. Commissioner László Andor presented his Green Paper on the future of pensions systems, published on Wednesday (see EUROPE 10176).
Summing up, Laurette Onkelinx made the following points: (1) It is more important than ever that new “instruments” are developed if the EPSCO Council is to play a key role alongside the ECOFIN Council in the EU's economic governance; (2) Every minister stressed the importance of the tenth guideline that examines the social aspects of the EU 2020 strategy. In this connection, the ministers instructed the social protection committee to come up with a new set of indicators for monitoring implementation of the various points set out in the tenth guideline and to thereby help boost social convergence; (3) Implementation of the over-arching social clause set out in Article 9 of the Lisbon Treaty requires a social dimension to be added to every policy introduced at EU level; and (4) The Open Coordination Method had been unanimously hailed as invaluable for exchanging best practice. Michel Daerden urged member states to examine the issues raised in the Commission's Green Paper, particularly the question of ensuring the continuation of the pensions system and decent pensions. (G.B./transl.fl)