The European Parliament adopted a resolution on
employment and social aspects of the Europe 2020 strategy, tabled
by its Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
In general, Parliament expressed regret that current
policies remain focused solely on economic growth without
acknowledging the need for an inclusive, rights-based and
sustainable approach. It regretted that the Annual Growth
Surveys and Country-Specific Recommendations (CSRs) adopted so far
as part of the annual European Semester cycles have not been
sufficiently aligned with the Europe 2020 employment, poverty
reduction and education targets.
It called on the Member States to
- implement efficient monitoring and recording of
best-practice models and methods in Europe, focusing on reducing
unemployment rates, especially among young people;
- apply a more ambitious and concrete approach when
translating EU targets into their own targets at national
level;
- set up platforms of social partners to combine the
interests of employers and employees.
Members urged the Commission and the Member States to
ensure that any increase in the employment rate is the result of
adding to the number of quality jobs within the European
economy.
Precarious employment:
Members regretted the fact that the increases in employment rates
have partly been the result of precarious forms of employment such
as zero-hour contracts, bogus self-employment and involuntary
part-time work. They called on the Member States to include
additional indicators such as child poverty levels, access to
healthcare and homelessness.
More focus on youth: Members recalled that,
according to Eurofound, the cost of young people who are not in
education, employment, or training (NEETs) (in lost income, lost
tax revenue and increased spending on welfare transfers) in the EU
rose from 153 billion in 2011 to 162 billion in 2012.
Increased EU funding is needed in order to attain the
Europe 2020 strategy target of 75% employment. Members encouraged
Member States, in order to reach the 75% employment targets, to
improve leadership, management and entrepreneurial skills among
young people so that young people can become employers and not
just employees.
Juncker Initiative: Members welcomed the
announcement by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker concerning
a comprehensive investment programme to fight unemployment. They
encouraged linking these investments to concrete employment and
poverty-related goals.
Further measures are called for such as:
- focusing on sectors with high growth and job creation
potential such as the green sector, the white sector and
ICT;
- more funding should be allocated to Erasmus for Young
Entrepreneurs, in order to more efficiently support youth
entrepreneurship and youth mobility;
- the reinseration of women;
- eliminating unnecessary administrative burdens and
bureaucracy for the self-employed, micro-enterprises and SMEs, and
to facilitate the conditions for start-up businesses;
- the need to shift the tax burden away from labour
towards other forms of sustainable taxation in order to promote
growth and job creation;
- promoting and improving the European Job Mobility
Portal EURES and the Public Employment Services.
Public consultation:
Parliament considered that the objectives of the Europe 2020
strategy are yet to be achieved. Therefore, they called on the
Commission to open a public consultation procedure for the
review of the European Semester in order to improve its
effectiveness and legitimacy, as part of the mid-term
review.
Protect the most vulnerable: Members called for urgent measures to reverse the
trend of increasing rates of at-risk-of-poverty and social
exclusion in order to meet the Europe 2020 headline target of
lifting at least 20 million people out of the risk of poverty or
social exclusion. It called on the Member
States to guarantee access to the labour market and adequate social
security for the most vulnerable members of society and reduce
poverty and help those at risk of exclusion.
Social budget reduction:
Members regretted the fact that the Multiannual Financial Framework
adopted for 2014-2020, with a budgetary allocation of EUR 960
billion, represented the first ever net reduction in the EU
budget. They considered that the MFF is not sufficient to
help achieve the employment and social targets of the Europe 2020
strategy. It, therefore, considered the mid-term review of the
MFF to be of paramount importance for reshaping the strategic
orientation of the EUs expenditure towards a job-rich
economic recovery.
Civil society and European Parliament
scrutiny: lastly, Parliament stressed
the essential role of the consultation process with civil society
stakeholders in order to boost the democratic legitimacy of the
process in order for the reforms to be acceptable to
citizens.
It called on the Commission to take into account the
outcome of the ongoing public consultation before publishing
concrete proposals for the mid-term review of the strategy and
insisted equally that Parliament must be consulted on the final
decisions before they are adopted.