Diamantopoulou to stress ‘quality at work’

Date: 20/09/01

By John Shelley

SOCIAL affairs Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou will today (20 September) demand that the EU's drive to create quality employment must not be a 'fair weather' policy that can be dropped in times of economic crisis. She will tell a Belgian presidency employment conference that despite the current precarious situation of the global economy, ensuring quality in work is not an optional extra but an essential part of the way Europe works. "In the next six to 12 months we will face economic uncertainties. In the next two to three years we will be making the final preparations for enlargement," she will say. "During those times we must not allow ourselves to be driven off course."

Diamantopoulou has long argued that better jobs and higher worker satisfaction leads to better quality products and services and that effective social policies bring economic benefits as well as better societies.

Social Affairs Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou is to demand that the EU's drive to create quality employment must not be a 'fair weather' policy that can be dropped in times of economic crisis.