The draft EU employment guidelines, as proposed by the Commission, have been considered by the ECOFIN and Social Affairs Councils and most recently by the Extraordinary European Council of Heads of State and Government which was held exclusively on the subject of employment in Luxembourg on 20 and 21 November.
On foot of the Conclusions of the Extraordinary Council, the Commission will now finalise its proposal for the guidelines for formal approval by Council shortly.
The position, therefore, is that the guidelines have not yet been adopted. However, it is evident that the content of the guidelines, when adopted, will require member states to prepare national action plans for how they intend to implement the guidelines. The Irish national plan will be drawn up by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, in consultation with other Departments as appropriate.
It is expected that the national action plans of the member states will become available early next year, and that the first review of the plans will take place at the Cardiff European Council in June 1998.