Brussels, 15/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - A general budgetary transfer system, a supranational budgetary capacity backing up national unemployment insurance systems or a basic unemployment insurance system in the economic and monetary union (EMU): these are the three options put forward by the Italian Presidency on possibly setting up an automatic eurozone stabilising mechanism. European labour ministers will discuss this issue at the informal Employment and Social Affairs Council in Milan on Thursday 16 and Friday 17 July.
This Council will begin with a joint meeting with environment ministers (see EUROPE 11121). The plenary session will focus entirely on the initiative recently presented by the European Commission on “green” jobs (see EUROPE 11113). Contributions are expected from Italian ministers Gien Luca Galletti (environment) and Giuliano Poletti (employment), the director general of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Guy Ryder, the director general for the environment at the OECD, Simon Upton, and Commissioners Laszlo Andor (employment) and Janez Potocnik (environment).
The ministers will then take part in one of the four roundtables proposed by the Presidency on: - the integration of employment and environmental policies: tools, experiences and obstacles; - employment potential and skills needed in a greener economy; - towards a green economy: managing successfully labour market transitions; - monitoring green jobs in an integrated European policy (European semester).
At the end of the day on Thursday 16 July, ministers for employment will meet alone to discuss on of the goals of the EUROPE 2020 strategy: reducing the number of people affected or threatened by poverty and social exclusion by at least 20 million by 2020. As pointed out by the Presidency, the targets contained in the country-specific recommendations from the Commission, barely total two thirds of the 20 million people who should be supported by this strategy. According to the vision Italy putting forward, there has to be a “rethink” of the architecture of the European semester, in particular strengthening member states' ownership of the process, so as to reinvigorate the entire strategy.
On Friday 17 July, ministers will be able to choose between two workshops: on workers' mobility or implementing automatic stabilisers in the EMU. In the first workshop, ministers will be asked to give their opinions on ways of improving workers' mobility in the EU, as well is proposing the means to tackle the various socio-economic challenges created by this mobility. In the second workshop, the debate will remain theoretical but will, however, look to take forward the discussions which are tending towards creating a capacity within the EMU that is complementary to national unemployment insurance systems - something that Commissioner Andor supports (see EUROPE 11102). This informal Council will close with a debate chaired by Professor Leonardo Becchetti (University of Rome “Tor Vergata”) on the importance of the social economy. (JK)