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INFO. Nr
8 The
Intergovernmental Conference To the member organisations Dear friends In 1997, the Member States of
the European Union signed the Treaty of Amsterdam. The EUCDW
took at that time actively part in the discussions on the reform
of the preceding Maastricht Treaty and insisted particularly
on the inclusion of the so-called "social minutes"
into the Treaty, in order to create a uniform European social
Union. In addition, the EUCDW demanded a chapter on "employment
policy". The requirements of the EUCDW correspond with the
position of the Workers' group of the EPP group; they were represented
at the Intergovernmental Conference in particular by Jean-Claude
Juncker (formerly chairman of the EUCDW) and Jean Luc Dehaene.
The Intergovernmental
Conference After the Treaty of Amsterdam came into effect on the 1st May 1999, the European Council of Cologne decided on 4th June 1999 to call up, at the beginning of 2000, a new "Intergovernmental conference" (IGC) in order to examine again the brand new Treaty. With this decision, a discussion started to what extent the Treaty had to be revised. The new chairman of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, explained that in view of the challenge of the enlargement of the European Union, a reduced Intergovernmental Conference would be a big mistake. Therefore he asked Jean Luc Dehaene (formerly Prime Minister of Belgium), Richard von Weizsäcker (formerly president of the Federal Republic of Germany) and lord Simon of Highbury (formerly Minister), on 1st September 1999, to evaluate by October the institutional consequences of the enlargement in view of the Intergovernmental Conference. This group submitted its report on 18th October 1999. Here are some of the most important proposals: 1. The decision-making procedure in an extended union must usually be made by qualified majority, if the Community wants to remain effective. Where unanimity is required, the risk of blocking votes rises proportionally with the number of participants. The decision-making process should be more dynamic. 2. A more extended application of the codecision procedure, by which the European Parliament can decide equivalently with the Council. 3. In order to avoid that the texts of the Treaty must constantly be changed by a long procedure (with the IGC), the group suggests to divide the texts in two parts: one part with the goals, the principles, the general political guidelines and the civil rights which can be changed only unanimously by an Intergovernmental Conference, and another part, in relation to specific political policies which can be changed by a Council decision with the agreement of the European Parliament. For Dehaene this applies for example to the employment policy: the employment guidelines for job creation do not form a fundamental part of the Treaty. They should be written in another text which can be modified easily
The European Parliament and the Commission already gave their opinion about the report of the experts. The Member States are next at the European Council of Helsinki (10 and 11 December). The European Council decided that the Intergovernmental Conference must be completed before the end of 2000. That means that the EUCDW has sufficiently time to discuss this important issue and to take a position about it. Tom De Saegher The European employment guidelines for the year 2000 Evaluation of the report of the European Parliament On 4th November 1999, the European Parliament accepted the report for the employment policy 2000, which consists actually of a report on the Employment guidelines 2000 and the formation of an employment committee and secondly of a common employment report about 1999 established by the Commission and the Council (we discussed this topic earlier in INFO. No. 7). The EUCDW could find its demands in the report to a large extent and congratulates the reporter Winfried Menrad as well as Mathieu Grosch, who wrote the appropriate position for the economic committee, what has lead to brilliant result for the EPP. The five points from the priorities of the EUCDW: 1)The reports of the Parliament give a clear signal to increase the quality of the guidelines and not the number of guidelines. For this two examples: In the fight against the youth and long-term unemployment, the Menrad report demands an active employment policy with as objective the durable integration into the job market. The percentage of unemployed persons, to which training, formation or another active measure of the employment policy are offered, must be increased from 20 to 25 per cent. 2) The report generally expects
of the Commission that "the interactions between the 3) The new employment committee must " cooperate with the other relevant bodies and committees, which are dealing with economic, financial and social policy". 4.) In the report it is not only required that the new employment committee should listen regularly to the social partners, but also that the Member States take the positions of the organs and partners on regional level into account. 5) The report expects not only an "improved co-ordination of the actors in the field of the employment, social and economic policy and of the financial, environmental and structural policy", it points also out that the financial assistance and/or tax facilities for the companies must better be supervised in order to see if they really contribute to the job creation and not to the job reduction by restructure or relocation. The social partners must take part in this supervision. Still, some points must be achieved for the EUCDW, and that in relation to the temporal limit for the implementation and on the quantification of the objectives. Furthermore the Member States should indicate the financial means, which are available in order to realise concrete measures in their action plans. In this context it is to be mentioned that the Menrad report demands a stronger involvement of the European Parliament as the lawyer of the citizens in the process of the realisation of the guidelines.The report also requires a more intensive involvement of the social partners in order to equalise a further realisation of the European employment policy. cw
The
European Union of Christian Democratic Workers (EUCDW) consists of 23
workers' organisations from 15 countries and is an association of the
European People's Party (EPP).
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