Brussels, 02/09/2002 (Agence Europe) - At the initiative of Commissioners Anna Diamantopoulou (Employment and Social Affairs) and Pedro Solbes Mira (Economic and Monetary Affairs), the Commission is to approve, on Tuesday in Strasbourg, its communication entitled "Rationalisation of annual cycles of economic policy and employment policy coordination". In the communication, the Commission sets out its ideas on how to achieve better coordination of policy guidelines while safeguarding the autonomy of the coordination processes founded on the Treaty. The Commission explains that this should mainly help to: - strengthen the effectiveness of coordination by ensuring, above all, better follow-up of implementation; - improve coherence and complementarity between the different processes and instruments that already exist; - promote shared liability, mainly by involving the EP and national parliaments more actively and by improving consultation of social partners and the civil society; - and increase transparency of the coordination cycle.
In its communication, the Commission makes suggestions with a view to such rationalisation, mainly concerning the preparation of the European Spring Council and the proposals that it itself makes on new guidelines and recommendations as well as on their adoption. The Commission also proposes a timetable whereby the process of rationalisation should be applied as soon as the European Spring Council 2003 is under preparation (in Greece), and in good time for the development of the next BEPG, guidelines on employment and the internal market strategy. EUROPE will come back to the implications of the changes proposed, from the point of view of procedures for these three sectors.