Much noise but little substance at jobs summit

Date: 30/10/1997

By Simon Coss

BEFORE deciding whether next month's job summit will be a success or a failure, one point needs to be very clear: the aim of the exercise is not to show that governments care about creating employment at home.

Few would argue that EU member states are not concerned about the level of joblessness amongst their respective electorates.

The Luxembourg meeting of Union leaders has been convened to try to come up with some sort of commonly agreed European approach to job creation and it is on this basis that the usefulness of the event should be judged.

As things stand, the most common question which observers of the preparations must be asking themselves is, 'why did they bother?'.

When the idea of a special jobs summit was first raised by France at June's meeting of EU leaders in Amsterdam, many member states questioned whether such a meeting was really necessary. Indeed, one of the most vocal sceptics was Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker who, as current Union president-in-office, has the dubious pleasure of hosting the meeting.

Over the weeks and months since Amsterdam, one government after another has stressed that job creation initiatives must remain essentially a national competence and that no new money can be made available for EU employment projects. A particularly belligerent Germany has been at the forefront of this campaign, but many less vocal administrations have been happy to shelter behind Bonn's bluster.

When European Commission President Jacques Santer suggested member states could create 12 million new jobs over five years if they were prepared to follow a set of employment guidelines drawn up by the Directorate-General for social affairs (DGV), he was quickly informed that setting specific targets was not helpful.

It seems that most member states are following the old adage that charity begins at home when it comes to employment generation. With many governments facing serious unemployment crises on their own doorsteps, they appear to feel they simply cannot afford the luxury of engaging in a bout of high-minded 'Europeanism' in attempting to get people back to work.

Even if there were more willingness to come up with some sort of EU-wide strategy, it is difficult to see where substantial common ground could be found. National approaches to job creation vary widely even between member states with governments which, in theory, come from the same end of the political spectrum.

In France and Italy, the Socialist and centre-left administrations have just announced plans to introduce a 35-hour working week in order to share out working time more equitably. The UK's New Labour government, on the other hand, argues that increased employment will only come through flexible labour markets unhindered by excessive legislation.

Then there are the serious issues which seem unlikely even to be raised at the summit. What will be the effect on Europe's employment market of enlarging the Union to include up to ten central and eastern European states in the throes of painful economic restructuring? Are the current member states prepared for a possible influx of job-hungry east Europeans looking for work in the affluent West? How will poorer EU countries, whose job creation programmes rely heavily on the Union's structural funds, cope when they are no longer first in the queue for financial assistance?

When it comes to finding constructive answers to such questions, the current silence is deafening.

There will, of course, be some sort of outcome from the summit. EU diplomats are, after all, past masters in the art of drawing up impressive-sounding declarations.

Member states will probably agree to try to follow some of the Commission's job creation guidelines - minus the targets.

We can expect lots of fine words on the importance of training, promises to try to ensure, where possible, that school leavers and the long-term unemployed will be found a job within six months to a year respectively and undoubtedly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will once again be heralded as probably the single most important source of new jobs the Union has.

Existing EU funds may even be repackaged to give the impression that member states are opening their wallets as well as their hearts in their efforts to help the unemployed.

But will governments make really significant commitments such as promising to shift the tax burden from employees to non-labour costs or making it easier for SMEs to get the bank loans that they need? These issues are less likely to be clarified in Luxembourg.

This brings us back to the central question surrounding the summit. Why did leaders agree to hold the event in the first place?

By committing themselves to EU-level action when they are clearly not prepared to 'go the whole distance' they not only risk lowering the Union's standing in the eyes of the public but, ironically, may also detract from real job-creation efforts back home.