Brussels, 09/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 9 December, European ministers responsible for employment issues agreed to set up a formal EU-level Public Employment Services (PESs) Network. Participation in the network will be voluntary but this decision is more the result of a legal obligation than a genuine political challenge. The Council and the European Parliament will now be able to enter negotiations and an agreement could possibly be reached this coming February.
The European Commission is only partly satisfied with this result. It would have liked the Employment Council to follow its proposal for setting up this network, which has existed informally since 1997, with compulsory participation of all member states. The principle of strengthened cooperation was, however, adopted because the Council's legal services contested the compatibility of the legal basis chosen by the Commission (Article 149 of the TFEU) with the idea of the compulsory participation of member states. The commissioner for employment and social affairs, Laszlo Andor, repeated his disappointment with this legal interpretation. He said that it was more to do with the lack of political will even though the two conferences on employment issues in Berlin and Paris had sufficiently demonstrated the importance of formal cooperation between the public employment services bodies in the PESs network.
The Council agreement means that the network and its initiatives will be funded under the PROGRESS section of the new European programme for employment and social innovation. It will therefore draw from the €550 million budget (at current prices) for the 2014-2020 period. A network management board will examine how cooperation can be carried out. It will be made up of representatives of national PESs, the Commission and the Employment Committee, which will have observer status. This network will have a number of different objectives: developing a comparative and systematic learning process that is dynamic and integrated; following up implementation of country-specific recommendations and strategic initiatives, such as the youth guarantee; introducing common initiatives on the exchange of information and best practice; and carrying out comparative analyses and providing advice. (JK/transl.fl)