Brussels, 09/10/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 8 October, the European Employment Strategy (EES) celebrated its tenth anniversary. The strategy, which establishes common EU objectives and priorities and ensures coordination of employment policies across the EU, has helped raise the EU employment rate from 60.7% to 64.3% since 1997 and cut long term unemployment from 5% to 3.6%.
The anniversary was marked by a major conference organised by the European Commission and the Portuguese EU Presidency in Lisbon that same day in order to take stock of employment prospects and priorities in Europe. The event helped to feed into the debates on flexicurity and more inclusive labour markets. The 500 participants at the conference include Portugal's Prime Minister José Socrates, German Vice-Chancellor and Minister for Employment Franz Müntefering and Luxembourg Employment Minister François Biltgen. A new brochure on ten years of EES will be launched at the event. For information: http: //ec.europa.eu/employment_social/employment_strategy/index_en.htm (gb)