Brussels, 22/05/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 20 May in Strasbourg, the European Parliament adopted the report of Anne Van Lancker (PES, Belgium) on “the guidelines for the employment policies of member states” by 584 votes for, 72 against, with 11 abstentions. Parliament is therefore essentially calling on member states to continue their effort to reach the targets of full employment, quality jobs, equal opportunities and social cohesion. It is also calling for efforts to focus on strengthening the social dimension in these guidelines and their swift implementation. This vote ratifies the work of the EP's Employment Commission, which during its 6 May meeting last, amended the Commission's text and thus following the wishes expressed by Van Lancker in her draft report (EUROPE 9657 and 9611).
To reach these targets the EP amended the text in the following way: member states should: 1) put the “focus on strengthening the social dimension of the Employment Guidelines and their effective and timely implementation, paying special attention to the agreed qualitative and quantitative targets and benchmarks”; 2) seek to promote “a lifestyle approach to work by fighting discrimination based on gender and age and by adopting measures to ensure that people combining work and care are not penalised later in life as regards pensions and social security benefits or by encouraging workers to prolong their working lives if they wish to retire later”; 3) ensure the active social integration of all and tackle poverty and social exclusion by guaranteeing a decent income and better access to quality social services together with better access to the labour market through the expansion of job opportunities and initial or ongoing vocational training”; 4) expand lifelong learning opportunities and “to as great extent as possible in order to prevent pupils from leaving school without qualifications and thereby running a high risk of unemployment”.
Parliament also adopted the following benchmarks and criteria in the European employment strategy: 1) to ensure that, “every unemployed person is offered a new start before reaching 4 months of unemployment in the case of young people and 12 months in the case of adults in the form of training, retraining or work experience”; 2) “that 25% of the long-term unemployed should participate by 2010 in a programme of active measures”; 3) increase by five years, at EU level, the average exit age from the labour market by 2010 (compared to 59.9 in 2001); 4) provision of childcare by 2010 to at least 90% f children between 3 years old and the mandatory school age and at least 33% of children under 3”; 5) an average rate of no more than 10% of early school leavers; 6) “that at least 85% of 22-yeals should have completed upper secondary education by 2010”; 7) that the EU average level of participation in lifelong learning should be at least 12.5% of the adult working-age population (25-64 age group)”.
At the end of the session, Employment Commissioner, Vladimir Spidla, noted that the European employment strategy had obtained tangible results: the rates of unemployment and employment are much better now than in the 1980s; 2) the quality of employment had improved; 3) the link between social inclusion, decent wage and employment has to be maintained. Active inclusion is, “a concrete measure of the Commission's response to this phenomenon. Inclusion policy should be much broader than the labour market itself”. (G.B.)