Brussels, 02/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - In a letter addressed to Goran Person, acting President of the European Council, the Secretary General of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) Emilio Gabaglio indicated the ETUC priorities for the Stockholm European Council.
1) the target of full employment, accompanied by mechanisms to achieve it, must be at the heart of the Stockholm decisions. As with the European Commission, the ETUC feels that the target of national full employment must be set in consultation with social partners;
2) the balanced strategy from Lisbon, including macro-economic, social and structural policies must be reflected in the Stockholm conclusions. The Union must also maintain a target growth of 3% needed to achieve full employment;
3) the Summit must recognise the importance of the way in which the reform process must be managed. The ETUC is saddened that this issue is not the object of a separate point in the Commission report, especially in the light of the proposals that are present in the Social Agenda, from those presently being discussed on the information-consultation of workers at the national level and those on the establishment of the monitoring centre for structural changes. The Summit should recognised the importance of these measures and emphasis the European practice of managing change through social dialogue and social partnership, through active policies in the labour market and social protection, and through quality public services;
4) the Summit must clarify the relationship between the Lisbon strategy and the process in terms of economic, social, industrial policies and existing social protection and to make this strategy and its policies more coherent;
5) the Summit must underline the importance of life long training and equal access to this training for women and men. It should rubber stamp the targets contained in the guidelines for employment 2001, namely doubling by 2005 the number of workers being trained to reach the rate of 10% of the working population by 2010. It should also encourage the social partners to conclude agreements aiming to promote life long training at the company level, and more specifically give each worker, by 2003, the opportunity to have an basic training in new technologies. Finally, the Summit should set targets in terms of the growth in the investments made in human resources, as a proportion of GDP.