Fight For Jobs Gains Ground In Eu Talks

Noel Dorr, heading a group negotiating EU reforms, said a majority of countries favoured legally focusing the bloc on combatting high unemployment.

Opposition remained, he said, from countries fearing centralised employment planning, but he said the talks were clearly moving towards writing a special employment chapter into the treaty.

Sweden put forward a detailed proposal for such a chapter on Tuesday, adding to plans offered previously by Denmark, Austria and Belgium. The Irish EU presidency also has a jobs paper on the table. But negotiators said the idea continued to face opposition among heavyweights Britain, Germany and France.

With an employment chapter, we know that the fight against unemployment will always top the EU's agenda, said Gunnar Lund, Swedish chief negotiator.

 

at the talks, the inter-governmental conference (IGC).

All member states agree that lowering an unemployment rate of some 11 per cent, more than twice that in the United States, is the most pressing problem facing the bloc. But there are different views on what role the EU should play.

There are still countries which are not delighted with the idea, Lund told reporters.

He said there seemed now to be a clearly more open attitude from France and Germany, but Danish IGC negotiator Niels Ersboell said the two countries still opposed the idea.

He said Paris and Bonn did not disagree that the EU should do more to fight unemployment.

The objection is about the need to inscribe this into the treaty, Ersboell said, adding that they feared such a chapter could create expectations that the EU could not live up to.

Another argument was that it could create confusion about the EU's determination to stick to the criteria for economic and monetary union (EMU).

However, Ersboell said: We reject these worries as completely groundless.

Lund also stressed that such a chapter would not interfere with plans to create a single currency in 1999, or automatically lead to more spending.

Employment policies would remain mainly a national responsibility, he added.

Ersboell said Britain was against an employment chapter on principle. They don't think this is for the European Union at all but should be a national effort, he said.

According to the Swedish proposal, EU countries would commit themselves to a policy which promotes a high and sustainable level of employment and low unemployment.

Each country would adopt multi-year employment programmes and the EU would monitor the developments in each member state.

To promote coordination of national policies, a special employment committee with representatives from each member state would be set up to review the employment situation.