Brussels, 26/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - Like others, the position off the Italian Government for the European Council of Stockholm of 23 and 24 March places emphasis on the need to genuinely render effective the "open method of coordination", set up at the Lisbon Summit of March 2000; according to Italy, "a significant tool to advance in this direction will be the structural indicators exercise", and, in this exercise, the "focus should be on the dynamics as well as on the levels of the indicators". Italy considers tat, in Stockholm, the Heads of State and Government should:
(1) regarding employment and social cohesion, fix intermediate targets for employment and fix new targets for other structural indicators. Thus, the European Council should:
for 2005 fix intermediate targets of 65% overall and 55% for women (you may recall that the Swedish Presidency and the European Commission suggest 67% and 57% respectively);
for 2010 fix a new target for the employment rate of older workers (according to Italy, the Summit should adopt a "Declaration on Active Ageing");
for 2010 set new goals for long-term unemployment and the level of poverty (which would highlight the "social cohesion" dimension of the Lisbon Strategy);
invite Member States to produce updated data sets for social indicators and set national targets and timetables (and, if appropriate, regional) for social indicators;
request the Council and Commission to undertake a detailed study on the evaluation of the policy indicators developed within the Luxembourg and Cardiff processes. Italy considers that specific indicators should be developed to "better understand the performance of national education systems".
(2) regarding labour mobility, measures should be taken to secure progress in the "relatively short" term. In particular, the European Council should:
fix clear deadlines for the "portability of supplementary pensions";
invite the Council and the European Parliament to adopt by 2002 proposals to modernise the social security of migrant workers, and by June the recommendation on the mobility of students, persons undergoing training, young volunteers, teachers and trainers;
invite the Commission to report by the end of 2001 on the "feasibility of an EU-wide social security card".
(3) Regarding regional policies, recognise not only the positive impact of new technologies and innovation, but also the risk of the digital divide jeopardizing the competitiveness of traditional SMEs and "backward regions". In Stockholm, the Council should in particular, according to Italy:
welcome a more effective use of structural funds for interventions on the broad-band infrastructures and the diffusion of knowledge of computer and Internet usage especially for particularly disadvantaged areas;
recommend that the Commission consider new frameworks that allow consideration of regional state aid in a way "that recognizes its role for the development of backward regions within an non distortionary framework" (the Italian document states that "a new approach to regional policies at EU level" needs considering, by reducing State aid as a whole but also in seeing it as being part of a rational and integrated policy aimed at stimulating the "catching-up of backward regions").
invite the Commission and Council to present a report on best practice "policy-mix" to increase worker participation in the "formal economy" with the purpose of introducing the problem of the "black economy" (which especially plagues backward regions) in the European Employment Strategy. (See EUROPE of 1 February, p.12, for Finland's contribution, and 2 February, p.7, for France's).