The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) stipulates in Article 145 that Member States and the Union shall work towards developing a coordinated strategy for employment and particularly for promoting a skilled, trained and adaptable workforce as well as labour markets that are responsive to economic change and with a view to achieving the objectives defined in Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). Member States, having regard to national practices related to the responsibilities of management and labour, shall regard promoting employment as a matter of common concern and shall coordinate their action in this respect within the Council, in accordance with the provisions of Article 148 of the TFEU.
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The TEU stipulates in Article 3(3) that the Union shall aim at full employment and shall combat social exclusion and discrimination, and shall promote social justice and protection and provides for the Union’s initiatives to ensure coordination of Member States’ social policies. Article 8 of the TFEU stipulates that in all its activities, the Union shall aim to eliminate inequalities, and to promote equality, between men and women. Article 9 thereof provides that in defining and implementing its policies and activities, the Union shall take into account requirements linked to the promotion of a high level of employment, the guarantee of adequate social protection, the fight against social exclusion, and a high level of education and training.
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The TFEU provides that employment guidelines and broad economic policy guidelines are to be adopted by the Council to guide Member States’ policies.
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The Lisbon Strategy, launched in 2000, was based on an acknowledgement of the EU’s need to increase its employment, productivity and competitiveness, while enhancing social cohesion, in the face of global competition, technological change, environmental challenges and an ageing population. The Lisbon Strategy was relaunched in 2005, after a mid-term review which led to greater focus on growth and more and better jobs.
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The Lisbon strategy for growth and jobs helped forge consensus around the broad direction of the EU’s economic and employment policies. Under the strategy, both broad economic policy guidelines and employment guidelines were adopted by the Council Decision 2005/600/EC (5) and revised in Council Decision 2008/618/EC (6). The 24 guidelines laid the foundations for the National Reform Programmes, outlining the key macroeconomic, microeconomic and labour market reform priorities for the Union as a whole. However, experience shows that the guidelines did not set clear enough priorities and that links between them could have been stronger. This limited their impact on national policymaking.
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The financial and economic crisis that started in 2008 resulted in a significant loss in jobs and potential output and has led to a dramatic deterioration in public finances. The European Economic Recovery Plan has nevertheless helped Member States to deal with the crisis, partly through a coordinated fiscal stimulus, with the euro providing an anchor for macroeconomic stability. The crisis therefore showed that when the coordination of Union policies is strengthened and rendered effective, it can deliver significant results. The crisis also underscored the close interdependence of the Member States’ economic and employment performance.
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The Commission proposed to set up a new strategy for the next decade, known as ‘the Europe 2020 Strategy’, to enable the Union to emerge stronger from the crisis, and to turn its economy towards smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, accompanied by high level employment, productivity and social cohesion. Five headline targets, listed under the relevant guidelines, constitute shared objectives which guide the action of the Member States, taking into account their relative starting positions and national circumstances, and which also guide the action of the Union. The Member States should, furthermore, make every effort to meet the national targets and to remove the bottlenecks that constrain growth.
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As part of comprehensive ‘exit strategies’ for the economic crisis, Member States should carry out ambitious reforms to ensure macroeconomic stability, the promotion of more and better jobs and the sustainability of public finance, improve competitiveness and productivity, reduce macroeconomic imbalances and enhance labour market performance. The withdrawal of the fiscal stimulus should be implemented and coordinated within the framework of the Stability and Growth Pact.
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Within the Europe 2020 strategy, Member States and the Union should implement reforms aimed at ‘smart growth’, i.e. growth driven by knowledge and innovation. Reforms should aim at improving the quality of education and ensuring access for all, as well as strengthening research, business performance and further improving the regulatory framework in order to promote innovation and knowledge transfer throughout the Union. Reforms should encourage entrepreneurship, the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and help to turn creative ideas into innovative products, services and processes that can create growth, quality and sustainable jobs, territorial, economic and social cohesion, and address more efficiently European and global societal challenges. Making the most of information and communication technologies is essential in this context.
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The policies of the Union and of Member States, including their reform programmes, should aim at ‘sustainable growth’. Sustainable growth means building an energy and resource-efficient, sustainable and competitive economy, a fair distribution of the cost and benefits and exploiting Europe’s leadership in the race to develop new processes and technologies, including green technologies. Member States and the Union should implement the necessary reforms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and use resources efficiently, which will also help to prevent environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. They should also improve the business environment, stimulate the creation of green jobs and help enterprises to modernise their industrial base.
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The policies of the Union and Member States’ reform programmes should also aim at ‘inclusive growth’. Inclusive growth means building a cohesive society in which people are empowered to anticipate and manage change and consequently to actively participate in society and the economy. Member States’ reforms should therefore ensure access and opportunities for all throughout their lifecycle, thus reducing poverty and social exclusion through removing barriers to labour market participation, especially for women, older workers, young people, people with disabilities and legal migrants. They should also make sure that the benefits of economic growth reach all citizens and all regions and foster employment-enhancing growth, based on decent work. Ensuring the effective functioning of the labour markets through investing in successful transitions, education and training systems, appropriate skills development, raising job quality, and fighting segmentation, structural unemployment, youth unemployment, and inactivity while ensuring adequate, sustainable social protection and active inclusion to prevent and reduce poverty, with particular attention to combating in-work poverty and reducing poverty amongst the groups most at risk from social exclusion, including children and young people, while at the same time adhering to agreed fiscal consolidation, should therefore be at the heart of Member States’ reform programmes.
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Increased labour market participation by women is a precondition for boosting growth and for tackling the demographic challenges. A visible gender equality perspective, integrated into all relevant policy areas, is therefore crucial for the implementation of all aspects of the guidelines in the Member States. Conditions should be created to support the supply of adequate, affordable, high-quality childcare services for pre-school age children. The principle of equal pay for male and female workers for equal work or work of equal value should be applied.
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The Union’s and Member States’ structural reforms can effectively contribute to growth and jobs if they enhance the Union’s competitiveness in the global economy, open up new opportunities for Europe’s exporters and provide competitive access to vital imports. Reforms should therefore take into account their external competitiveness implications to foster European growth and participation in open and fair markets worldwide.
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The Europe 2020 strategy has to be underpinned by an integrated set of European and national policies, which Member States and the Union should implement fully and in a timely manner, in order to achieve the positive spillover effects of coordinated structural reforms and a more consistent contribution from European policies to the strategy’s objectives. The guidelines are a framework for Member States in devising, implementing and monitoring national policies in the context of the overall EU strategy. The Europe 2020 headline targets listed under the relevant guidelines should guide the Member States in defining their own national targets and any sub-targets, taking account of their relative starting positions and national circumstances, and according to their national decision-making procedures. Where they do so, Member States may wish to draw on the indicators developed by the Employment Committee or the Social Protection Committee, as appropriate. The headline employment target draws attention to reducing unemployment of vulnerable groups, including young people.
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Cohesion policy and its structural funds are amongst a number of important delivery mechanisms to achieve the priorities of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in Member States and regions. In its conclusions of 17 June 2010, the European Council stressed the importance of promoting economic, social and territorial cohesion in order to contribute to the success of the new Europe 2020 strategy.
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When designing and implementing their National Reform Programmes taking account of these guidelines, Member States should ensure effective governance of employment policy. While these guidelines are addressed to Member States, the Europe 2020 strategy should, as appropriate, be implemented, monitored and evaluated in partnership with all national, regional and local authorities, closely associating parliaments, as well as social partners and representatives of civil society, who shall contribute to the elaboration of National Reform Programmes, to their implementation and to the overall communication on the strategy.
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The Europe 2020 strategy is underpinned by a smaller set of guidelines, replacing the previous set of 24 and addressing employment and broad economic policy issues in a coherent manner. The guidelines for the employment policies of the Member States, annexed to this Decision, are intrinsically linked with the guidelines for the economic policies of the Member States and of the Union, annexed to Council Recommendation of 13 July 2010 on broad guidelines for the economic policies of the Member States and of the Union (7). Together, they form the ‘Europe 2020 integrated guidelines’.
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These new integrated guidelines are in line with the conclusions of the European Council. They give precise guidance to the Member States on defining their National Reform Programmes and implementing reforms, reflecting interdependence and in line with the Stability and Growth Pact. The employment guidelines should form the basis for any country-specific recommendations that the Council may address to the Member States pursuant to Article 148(4) of the TFEU, in parallel with the country-specific recommendations addressed to the Member States pursuant to Article 121(4) of that Treaty, in order to form a coherent package of recommendations. The employment guidelines should also form the basis for the establishment of the Joint Employment Report sent annually by the Council and the Commission to the European Council.
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The Employment Committee and the Social Protection Committee should monitor progress in relation to the employment and social aspects of the employment guidelines, in line with their respective Treaty-based mandates. This should in particular build on the activities of the open method of coordination in the fields of employment and of social protection and social inclusion. In addition the Employment Committee should maintain close contact with other relevant Council preparatory instances, including in the field of education.
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Even though they must be drawn up each year, these guidelines should remain stable until 2014 to ensure a focus on implementation,
