Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 2 Dec 1997

Vol. 483 No. 6

Written Answers. - EU Employment Guidelines.

Bernard Allen

Ceist:

248 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Finance the steps, if any, he has taken to implement the new European Union enforced employment guidelines which will use Maastricht monetary criteria to monitor the unemployment crisis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21094/97]

Minister for Finance (Mr. McCreevy)

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.

The Maastricht criteria have provided a model for the employment guidelines, but the Maastricht criteria themselves will not be affected by the employment guidelines. The relationship is that the employment guidelines must be complementary to the Maastricht criteria, i.e. not be in conflict with the Maastricht criteria, by, for example, imposing undue additional public expenditure obligations.

The Deputy, quite rightly, refers to the unemployment crisis in the EU. While our national unemployment rate of about 10 per cent is now below the EU average of some 11 per cent, there is absolutely no cause for complacency, as 10 per cent is still an unacceptably high level. The initiative of introducing employment guidelines will increase the focus of the EU and the member states on the unemployment problem. The guidelines should lead to improved policies that over time will achieve the objective of reducing the level of unemployment in the Union.

The Government very much supports this initiative on guidelines and will be pressing forward actively with preparation of the national action plan and implementation of the guidelines.