Vol. 470 No. 2
26 Mr. B. Ahern asked the Taoiseach the progress, if any, which has been made during Ireland's Presidency of the EU in the establishment of area based employment pacts throughout the EU and in the implementation of the other Jacques Santer proposals for a European employment pact. [18642/96]
In relation to progress in establishing territorial employment pacts in Ireland — as indicated in my response to earlier questions from Deputy Ahern, Nos. 1 and 2 of 3 July 1996, the area-based partnership companies are based on a local development pact between employers, trade unions, state agencies and local communities. It is intended that these partnership areas will be selected as the pilot regions for Ireland. As there are 11 partnership companies in the Dublin area, I envisage that it would be useful to have an overall employment pact for Dublin which reflects the work of all of the partnership companies.
A major conference on local development will be held here on 11-12 November. The broad aim of the conference is to share the Irish model and experience of local development with policy-makers in the other member states and also to consider the Commission's proposals for local and territorial employment pacts. The conference will be attended by Ministers, officials and representatives of non-governmental organisations in all member states.
President Santer will be addressing the conference and members of the Commission staff will elaborate on their proposals for employ-initiatives including territorial and local employment pacts. The discussions and workshops which will be held during the conference will enable information and ideas on local employment initiatives to be shared, so that progress can be made in furthering the Commission's proposals.
In relation to the other elements of the Santer pact, given the need for the agreement of all 15 member states, and in some cases the desirability of social partner involvement too, progress has not been uniform across all elements of the pact.
Commissioner Flynn has established a high level group with a view to finding a solution to the blockage of the European company statute. However, it is unlikely that the Commissioner will have proposals on this before the end of the year. The same is true of Commission proposals for a biotechnology directive. The Presidency will do its utmost to bring the dossier on small and medium-sized enterprises to a conclusion.
In relation to the Essen process the Presidency has put in place a small steering group to oversee preparation of drafts of the single report on employment. The steering group is made up of the chairman of the ad hoc group of personal representatives of Ministers of Social Affairs, the chairman of the Economic Policy Committee, the Commission, DG II and DG V, the General Secretariat of the Council and the next two presidencies — Netherlands and Luxembourg. Following consultations, the final draft will be submitted for adoption by the Social Affairs and ECOFIN Councils on 2 December for transmission to the Dublin European Council.
