9 March Social Affairs Council

Date: 11/03/1999

GERMAN Labour Minister Walter Riester opened the meeting of EU social affairs ministers with a 'structured dialogue' with their counterparts from central and eastern Europe and Cyprus. The debate with applicant governments is part of the pre-accession strategy established by the 1997 Union summit in Luxembourg.

THE discussion focused on the candidate countries' social security systems and the need to adapt them to the standards operating in the EU. Riester formally put two questions to the applicant ministers, asking them what they regarded as the main issues in social matters and employment policy and how they could best take advantage of cooperation with the EU in this sphere. Several applicant ministers called for the Union's aid programme to eastern Europe, Phare, to be extended to social affairs. The Czech delegation said it was “regrettable” that the EU had not yet established a policy instrument to help the countries of central and eastern Europe bring their social policy into line with the Union's.

RIESTER outlined his latest plans for the drafting of a 'European employment pact', mandated by the EU's Vienna summit in December. He said it would be built on three 'pillars'. Controversially, the first of these would be macroeconomic policy, including the coordination of wages policy: a suggestion which was challenged as unworkable by some ministers and as dangerous by others. In his draft plan, Riester said wage policies “stabilise the expectations of monetary policy, consumers and investors over the long-term horizon”. The second pillar would be a honing of the existing procedures established at the Luxembourg summit for coordinating jobs policy, including the consolidation of employment 'guidelines' and national jobs action plans. Riester told colleagues that he would also table specific proposals for improving rates of youth employment, job opportunities for women, and getting the long-term unemployed back to work. The final pillar will be a follow-up to the process established at the June 1998 Cardiff summit for reforming the EU's goods, services and capital markets. Riester promised to ensure closer coordination between the drafting of the annual guidelines for employment and the broad economic guidelines, compiled by the European Commission and finance ministers.

MINISTERS followed up their debate at the 'informal' gathering in Bonn at the beginning of February by discussing the EU's employment and labour market committee's work programme for this year. They gave their final approval to reforms of the 25-year-old standing committee for employment which are aimed at streamlining the work of this consultative panel.

THEY also debated the impact of the free movement of workers on evasion of social security contributions and the spreading of illegal work, and agreed in principle on a resolution relating to establishing a code of conduct for collaboration between authorities in this area. Ministers also took note of progress made in extending the scope of the EU's rules on working time to employees in the maritime and road haulage sectors. The meeting ended with a joint working lunch.