‘Jobs chapter’ shakes unity

Date: 29/02/1996

By Rory Watson

THE European Parliament's call for unity on the future of the Union is being threatened by a split over the status the fight against unemployment should have in the revised Maastricht Treaty.

The divisions emerged after Irish Liberal MEP Pat Cox surprised his colleagues by resigning as author of the monetary committee's opinion on the weight to be given to a single currency and economic cooperation at the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference.

He stood down as rapporteur after the committee agreed the new treaty should include a specific chapter on “Employment Union”. The group also suggested that, in future, EU governments should ensure “a balanced and consistent approach” between economic and employment policies when drawing up their policy guidelines.

Cox challenged this, insisting instead that job creation should be tackled in the context of economic growth and competitiveness, adding: “Of course there are unacceptably high levels of unemployment now. But is the absence of a treaty chapter on employment causing this? I hardly think so.”

But a more fundamental reason lies behind his unexpected resignation. He fears that, while the specific convergence criteria for a single currency will remain, MEPs' tactics for giving the fight against unemployment a higher priority could “run the serious risk of opening up a political economy Pandora's box”.

He explained: “Almost the only area where there was unanimity in the Reflection Group preparing the IGC was that the provisions for monetary union must remain unchanged. But now the Parliament is raising the prospect of others being encouraged to open up other areas like the single currency timetable.”

Alman Metten, Cox's Dutch Socialist colleague, who has taken over as rapporteur, adopts a very different view on the strategy needed to reduce the 18 million unemployed and to demonstrate the EU's relevance to the public.

“Average unemployment is now 12&percent;. We can't leave it to the markets to solve that and we have to make it possible for the citizen to identify with the Union and show that the EU is not just about fighting inflation,” he said this week.

Those who support including a specific employment chapter in the new treaty argue that member states cannot successfully create jobs by introducing specific policies on their own. They say that to make an impact, measures must be coordinated throughout the Union.

Metten accepts that the single currency convergence criteria will remain unchanged, but adds: “When you consider broad economic guidelines, you often have many options. But when employment is a specific goal, it is clear which options are preferable.”

The monetary committee's views on the IGC will now be fed into the report which Belgian Socialist MEP Raymonde Dury and her Dutch Christian Democrat colleague Hanja Maij-Weggen are preparing as the Parliament's input into the exercise to redraft Maastricht.

In a bid to offer a wide range of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other outside groups a say in the negotiations, MEPs held a second public hearing on the issue in Brussels this week. The event attracted over 100 NGOs representing causes as diverse as European book publishing, animal rights, the defence industry, lesser-used languages and the disabled.

As the countdown to the launch of the IGC in Turin on 29 March begins, senior Belgian Christian Democrat MEP Leo Tindemans insisted last week that the IGC would have to consider the issue of neutrality.