Mr President, I should first like to say how pleased I am to have accepted your invitation to come here today to answer questions from Parliament on our White Paper on European social policy. It is, I believe, fitting that social policy, which is at the very heart of people's everyday concerns, should be the focus of one of the very first of these Question Time sessions.

The White Paper aims to set out a strategy for carrying European social policy forward to the end of this century and into the next. It is built around four specific main themes. The first is that we need a new mix between economic and social policies in order successfully to meet the challenges that the European Union is currently facing and experiencing. The second is that employment and the fight against unemployment must continue to be our top priority in this process. I would like to say a few more words about this in a moment, but a very important element of this process is the need to utilize the European Social Fund and the Community initiatives to build and maintain the levels of skills and invest in a world-class labour force.

The third theme is that there is still a need to develop and consolidate the legislative base in the social policy field. We need to encourage high labour standards as an integral part of creating and maintaining a competitive Europe and to ensure the conditions for free movement of workers in a Europe without frontiers. We must also actively promote equality of treatment and of opportunity between women and men, including the reconciliation of family and working life, the desegregation of the labour market and increasing the participation of women in decision-making.

The fourth theme of the White Paper is the need to strengthen cooperation and action across society as a whole. We must defend the dignity and rights of all people and ensure the social protection of the most vulnerable members of our society, the elderly, the poor, the disabled, the homeless and the socially excluded. We must never forget that the fundamental aim of the European Union is to improve the quality of life for all citizens of the Union.

Within this broad framework the White Paper contains a wide range of proposals, on which I will be happy to answer your questions. However, given its topicality and significance, particularly in the run-up to the Essen summit, I would like to focus my introductory remarks on the issue to which we have given our top priority, namely jobs. We have made this the top priority because the present high and persistent level of structural unemployment across Europe is without a doubt the greatest social problem that we face. To put it simply, unemployment reflects the problems that our societies are facing in adapting to the modern world. In this sense the White Paper on social policy is inextricably linked in its content as well as in its timing with the much broader White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment, which the European Commission presented at last December's European Council. The White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment was framed to launch a wide-ranging debate on the greatest pol

itical and economic challenge facing the European Union today: how to unlock the door to sustainable growth patterns and the creation of millions of new jobs. If we can do that, we shall also be alleviating our most pressing social problems. That is why the White Paper on social policy also gives top priority to jobs and job creation. Of course, Europe's social policy cannot directly create all the jobs that Europe needs, but it can make a significant contribution to improving the conditions for job creation in Europe. That is why the fundamental principle underlying the White Paper is that our social policy should be fully integrated with and articulated in terms of the broader objectives of Europe's economic strategy for economic growth and employment.

This new approach - the interface between the economic and the human - is vital. We need to ensure not merely that there is no conflict between growth policy and social policy but that the two will be mutually reinforcing. Social policy cannot just be taken forward during periods of growth, only to be put on the back burner when the economy is less strong.

Social policy is an integral part of the competitive formula. There will not be a competitive Europe without a vibrant social policy. As part of the continuing process the Commission intends to present a more detailed action plan for presentation to the Essen European Summit in December. In this plan the Commission will make a series of policy proposals to the European Council which will cover both process and actions to strengthen the planning process begun in Brussels and to speed the achievement of the Union's employment objectives. It will be geared towards enabling the Member States to reform and to redesign their whole employment creation systems. It will address the need to set targets and it will highlight the need to measure progress in a much more rigorous way than has generally been the case up until now.

The Commission will also make specific proposals regarding the actions that Member States can address within the seven key areas identified in the Brussels European Council. In this context our overall assessment to date is that while Member States are doing a great deal, the efforts undertaken so far will fall a long way short of the radical rethinking of employment systems that is needed if significant and lasting progress is to be achieved. The recovery of growth, at present under way, will hopefully provide a margin of manoeuvre to undertake the reforms that are necessary. It is imperative that this opportunity is seized and that the economic up-turn is not used as an excuse for relaxing efforts in this area.

In conclusion, I look forward to hearing your comments on the White Paper. It sets out an ambitious agenda with a wealth of proposals right across the social policy field. If, over the next few years, we can achieve the agenda that is set out in the White Paper, then we will have taken a huge and major step forward. I believe that one of the priority tasks of the next Commission should be to adopt a rolling action programme specifically designed to translate the objectives of the White Paper into reality. Such a programme would not only serve to focus our efforts but could also be the yardstick by which the citizens of Europe will judge the action of the Commission, Parliament and the Council and the progress of the Union in the social policy field. This White Paper copper-fastens the importance of an active social dimension as part of the process of integration. I believe it is a document of our time and I recommend it to the House.

(Applause)