Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-03-Speech-2-027"
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"en.20030603.1.2-027"2
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"Mr President, the Treaty states that there must be guidelines concerning the Member States’ employment policy. Even though I am very dubious about the value of EU guidelines, there is no point in discussing the whys and wherefores of them right now. I shall therefore concentrate on the Commission’s proposed guidelines and, above all, comment on Mr Herman Schmid’s report, as it appears following the vote in committee.
There is much that is good in the Commission’s proposal, although even
is too detailed. The debate in committee has led to further detailed requirements and measures having been added. If guidelines are to be of any value, they must be firmly established in the relevant Member State. It does not make sense to cite, as now in this proposal, an ever-increasing quantity of measures and detailed objectives. At present, it is a question of 15 Member States; tomorrow, of 25. Offering at least 33% of children under three years of age childcare is, in my view, an issue that EU guidelines should have no bearing upon whatsoever.
Apart from the general defect of being too detailed, the report before us has the fault of containing points that I very much doubt could do any thing at all to help increase employment. The rapporteur writes that responsibility for implementing a successful employment policy lies with the Member States. That is quite true for, as long as the governments of the Member States are not themselves prepared to take the necessary measures to reform the labour market, employment will not significantly increase. I am thinking mainly of reforms aimed at making it easier to employ staff, but also at reducing staff numbers. It is unfortunately the case that, for a small company to venture to employ one further person, its managers must know that, if it were to become necessary, they could reduce the number of staff. Germany is an example of what happens if a rigid labour market is not reformed. Unemployment has increased very considerably, partly because of rigid labour law. The fact is, too, that the longer the delay in reforming the labour markets, the more difficult the situation becomes.
It perhaps seems odd that, as a Swedish Moderate in this Chamber, I am going to refer to something said recently by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, but what he said is worth quoting. He said that structural reforms are needed if the European economy is to be given new impetus, that more trade liberalisation is required and, above all, a liberalisation of labour markets by means of fewer regulations and healthier levels of labour protection. There are at present 13 million people within the EU who do not have any work to go to. Chancellor Gordon Brown thought that flexibility was not a threat to full employment but the prerequisite for increased employment.
The guidelines should therefore be more overarching and concentrate on measures that, together with the economic policy guidelines, genuinely lead to economic growth and consequently to more people employed and thus to the provision of resources for things like education and health care."@en1
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