Bonn criticises plans for job-creation league tables

Date: 09/04/1998

By Simon Coss

USEFUL comparisons between national strategies for tackling unemployment within the EU will prove extremely difficult to make, claim German diplomats.

The warning comes less than a week before all 15 Union governments are due to present their unemployment action plans to the European Commission, as agreed at last November's EU jobs summit in Luxembourg.

These plans will form the basis of national efforts to meet the 'Luxembourg criteria' for job creation, which were also agreed at the meeting. Using these criteria it should, in theory, be possible to draw up an annual league table showing which member states have been most successful in creating work.

But Bonn, which has admitted that its own action plan is likely to arrive at least a week late, claims that in practice it will be very hard to make such comparisons. "It is really difficult. We have the first generation of guidelines, but these are likely to be revised in Vienna," said one German diplomat, referring to the EU summit to be held in the Austrian capital at the end of this year.

The Germans complain that during their next EU presidency starting in January 1999, they may be forced to issue reprimands - 'recommendations' in Union jargon - to member states which have not come up to scratch.

"It will be very hard because in Luxembourg we did not say 'you have to do this and this'," explained one expert, who pointed out that national governments gave themselves a great deal of leeway over how the Luxembourg criteria should be interpreted.

Experts note that while the French government has decided to take a 'hands-on' approach to tackling unemployment with its decision to reduce the statutory working week to 35 hours, other countries such as Germany and the UK argue that job creation is ultimately the responsibility of businesses and trade unions, and governments should focus on ensuring that labour markets are as flexible as possible.

Given such divergent approaches, critics question whether any valid comparisons can be made.

But Allan Larsson, head of the Commission's Directorate-General for social affairs (DGV) rejects such pessimism. "There is a lot of freedom for the member states to choose the mix of policies, but the overall aim is to tackle long-term unemployment," he told European Voice.

Larsson argues that what matters is not so much the methods employed by governments, but the results achieved. "The test will be simply this: will they be able to break long-term unemployment?"

DGV will present an initial assessment of the national action plans at this June's summit of EU leaders in Cardiff, although Larsson stresses the key analysis will be the joint employment report which the Commission and Council of Ministers will unveil later at the Vienna summit.

Even then, it will only be possible to say whether or not EU governments have made a political commitment to implement their plans. As the schemes will not come on stream until the beginning of 1999, it will not be possible to judge whether they are having an impact until the turn of the century.

Despite this long lead-in, Larsson believes that Europeans will not lose interest in the Luxembourg process.

"Unemployment is the hottest issue in Europe. It is the people's agenda," he said.