Finance ministers confirm hostility to jobs targets

Date: 06/11/1997

By Simon Coss

AS EXPECTED, the Union's finance ministers have given a resounding thumbs down to European Commission plans to set specific EU job creation targets over the next five years.

At a special meeting in Brussels yesterday evening (5 November), economics and finance ministers from the 15 member states called on the Commission to re-draft its plans ahead of the special EU jobs summit which takes place in Luxembourg later this month.

"A large majority was against targets and asked for more clarification of the Commission's plans," said one EU official.

Many delegations argued instead that individual member states should be able to set their own national targets if they wanted to.

Germany's Finance Ministers Theo Waigel was the most vocal opponent of the Commission's plan to create 12 million new jobs and cut unemployment to 7% over 5 years, but many of his EU colleagues were happy to shelter behind his tough rhetoric.

Germany has always insisted that job creation must remain an essentially national competence and has strongly criticised any moves to deal with the problem of unemployment at EU level.

Following on from last night's meeting, social affairs ministers gather in Brussels today (6 November) to discuss preparations for the jobs summit. They - along with their finance ministry colleagues and the Commission - will produce a joint report on unemployment which will be presented to the meeting of heads of state and government at their summit on 20-21 November.

It is highly likely that labour ministers will follow the anti-targets tone set by finance ministers as any inconsistency would lead to embarrassing accusations of splits within national administrations.

During their session yesterday, finance ministers also heard from Sir Brian Unwin, president of the European Investment Bank (EIB), who outlined his institution's current job creation initiatives.

At June's Amsterdam summit, the EIB - whose board of governors is made up of the 15 finance ministers - was given the specific task of looking into ways of providing financial assistance for job creation.

Amsterdam permitted the EIB to depart from the 'no-risk' lending strategy which has typified its activities over the past 40 years. While the majority of the loans it provides will still go towards financing major infrastructure projects, such as the Trans-European Network transport schemes, it will now be allowed to provide a certain amount of capital destined for more risky ventures such as providing start-up and venture capital for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

"Over the next three years we will be able to lend up to 1 billion ecu under these sorts of schemes," explained one bank official.

While the bank's job creation programmes are separate initiatives in no way linked to the jobs summit, national leaders are likely to make reference to them at the Luxembourg meeting. And despite the fact that, spread across the Union, the sums involved are relatively small, the EIB's programme is currently one of the few truly 'European' job creation measures on offer.