Experts propose compromise on job-creation targets

Date: 30/10/1997

ECONOMIC policy experts have devised a formula which would permit national governments to acknowledge tough European Commission job-creation targets without agreeing to be bound by them.

Under the compromise, national governments would agree that Commission President Jacques Santer's proposal that the EU should aim to create 12 million new jobs and cut unemployment from 10.6&percent; to 7&percent; over five years was a worthy goal.

But crucially, member states would not be in any way bound by this statement and would retain the right to set their own specific job targets which could differ from the Commission's global figures.

“Nobody really likes the Commission's targets, but there is a feeling that they now have a life of their own and we cannot get rid of them,” said one national official.

The plan, drawn up during a heated meeting of economic policy experts in Brussels this week, is set to be presented to EU finance ministers at a special meeting in Brussels next Wednesday (5 November) to prepare for the mid-November jobs summit. Social affairs ministers will meet the next day.

The sequence of the two gatherings is significant. Because they meet first, finance ministers will be able to set the tone of member states' reactions to Santer's plans, obliging their social affairs colleagues to either toe the line or risk opening up embarrassing splits within governments. “Everyone knows the finance ministers are the strongest,” said one diplomat.

It is not yet clear, however, whether they will accept the proposed compromise on targets. While the plan may look good diplomatically, it may well be hard for ministers to explain to their electorates why - on the face of it - they are prepared to do more to tackle unemployment at a European level than at home.

In reality, many member states will be unwilling to set national goals which they may not be able to meet and which could cost a great deal of money.

“If you follow the Commission's suggestion that every school-leaver is found employment within six months and every long-term unemployed person within a year, then in Germany you are talking about getting 1 million people back to work without necessarily creating any new jobs. That would be incredibly expensive,” explained one Bonn official.

More generally, finance ministers are likely to argue that the Commission's employment guidelines do not take enough account of the EU's general economic policy. Union leaders agreed at June's Amsterdam summit that governments would try to achieve a more coordinated approach when framing economic and employment policy.

“The guidelines concentrate too much on employment policy. They do not even make any reference to the economic policy guidelines. The biggest problems as far as unemployment is concerned are structural ones,” said one national official.

Meanwhile, delegates at a two-day conference on jobs and tourism beginning next Tuesday (4 November) will be told that the sector, which already employs an estimated 9 million Europeans - 6&percent; of the Union's workforce - has the potential to create at least 2 million new jobs within the EU before the end of the next decade.

The conference will bring together representatives from the Commission, the tourism industry, academia and regional government. The organisers intend to present its conclusions to the jobs summit.