20-24 October European Parliament plenary session

Date: 30/10/1997

DEMONSTRATING their support for the single currency, MEPs urged the European Commission to prepare its draft 1999 budget next spring using the euro, and not the ecu, as the unit of account. In its first assessment of 1998 expenditure, the Parliament voted to increase planned spending on education and youth policies by 93.5 million ecu and on social action programmes to tackle racism and drugs by 47 million ecu. Keen to reinforce the Union's responsibilities towards Latin America, the Mediterranean, eastern Europe and the Third World, MEPs added a further 254 million ecu to the EU's aid budget. Members will have their final say on the 1998 budget in December.

PARLIAMENT President José María Gil-Robles formally asked the Commission to start preparations for institutional reform of the Union so that proposals could be examined by MEPs before the June 1999 Euro-elections.

SOCIAL security systems throughout the EU should be adjusted and the burden of taxation shifted from labour to pollutants as a joint incentive to boost employment, MEPs decided. They also supported the idea of specific job-creation targets, agreeing that the Union should aim to increase the employment rate from 60.4&percent; to 65&percent; within five years and reduce the jobless total to 7&percent;. Looking ahead to the EU's special employment summit in November, the Parliament called for greater coordination of economic investment and tax policies and for particular emphasis to be placed on training and labour market flexibility.

AS PART of a wider campaign to protect children, MEPs wanted member states to establish minimum legal standards for content in audio-visual and information media by the end of next year. Keen to use the facilities offered by Europol, Euro MPs also urged closer administrative cooperation between national authorities and suggested police forces be given training in the new technologies and regular briefings on the latest developments.

MEPs endorsed tougher measures to guarantee the welfare of live animals imported into, and exported from, the Union and recommended that any preferential advantages traders enjoyed should be withdrawn if transport conditions failed to meet the required standards. They also agreed that regular monitoring, with random spot checks, should be introduced to ensure that EU norms were applied in third countries.

CHINA's human rights record came in for fierce criticism from MEPs, with UK Conservative member Edward McMillan-Scott pointing out that the 6,000 death sentences a year in the country equalled the total in the rest of the world. Members, however, welcomed attempts by EU governments to re-establish a human rights dialogue with Beijing as a way to improve the situation.

ALGERIAN journalist and human rights campaigner Salima Ghezali, the founder and first president of the Association for Female Emancipation and among those behind the launch of Women of Europe and the Maghreb, was awarded the Parliament's annual Sakharov prize.