A3-0122/94

Resolution on the Commission White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment

The European Parliament,

-having regard to the Commission White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment: the challenges and ways forward into the 21st century (COM(93)0700 - C3-0509/93),

-having regard to its resolution of 13 July 1991 on economic and fiscal instruments of environmental policy and its opinion of 17 November 1992 on the proposal from the Commission to the Council for a resolution on a Community Programme of Policy and Action in relation to the Environment and Sustainable Development, in which many of the ideas now taken up by the Commission were already to be found,

-having regard to the report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the opinions of the Committee on Energy, Research and Technology, the Committee on Regional Policy, Regional Planning and Relations with Regional and Local Authorities, the Committee on Transport and Tourism, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the Committee on Women's Rights (A3-0122/94),

A.alarmed that unemployment in the Community might this year reach a record level of 17 million people, more than 11% of the workforce,

B.recognizing that the White Paper is an excellent analysis of how the European Union can tackle the problems posed by unemployment and ensure that economic activity is environmentally compatible,

C. welcoming the many references in the White Paper to the dovetailing of economic activities with the environment,

D.aware that, in the past, the rate of unemployment has risen during every recession and fallen again in the subsequent period of growth, though never to the level at which it stood before the recession concerned began,

E.aware that the rate of unemployment in the Community, which currently stands at 11%, contrasts with a rate of about 7% in the USA and 2.5% in Japan, but that the policies pursued by these countries are not examples which should be followed, given the lack of security of the jobs created and the reduction in standards of social provision which the application of similar policies in Europe would entail,

F.recognizing that unemployment is partly structural since the increase in employment when the economy grows at a given rate is higher in Japan and very much higher in the USA than in the Community, reflecting higher European labour productivity growth,

G.recognizing that the Commission's 1993 report 'Employment in Europe' found that in the last decade labour costs in the European Union were broadly in line with productivity,

H.regretting that the restructuring of the former command economies in the Community's neighbours in Central and Eastern Europe is taking longer than initially expected, and that standards of living and market volumes in those countries are rising only slowly or are still falling,

I.pleased that the agreement reached in the GATT negotiations could result in growth within the OECD worth some USD 135 billion in the next nine years, but concerned that the Community's firms are under-represented on the growth markets in South-East Asia; firmly believing that the Uruguay Round should be quickly followed up by environmental and social clauses to ensure that benefits of growth in world trade are translated into environmental and social progress,

J.hoping that the recession in the Community is ending and that this year will once again see new economic growth, although not yet sufficient to halt the rise in unemployment,

K.recognizing that sustainable, environmentally sound growth without inflation is required in order to attain the Commission's objective of creating 15 million jobs by the end of the century,

L.aware that the cost of capital in some Member States is higher than in other nations, such as Japan; aware also that Japanese investors accept lower rates of return and therefore invest more because Japanese macro-economic management and industrial policies have succeeded in reducing the risk which dissuades investors,

M.whereas the competitiveness of European industry depends principally on the quality and price of its products and on the ratio between these factors,

N.whereas the recession is one of the factors impeding the progress needed to complete economic and monetary union,

I.Recommends that the following measures be taken to solve the structural crisis in the Community:

Structural measures

1.Welcomes the White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment as an important response to the tragedy of unemployment in the European Union;

2.In view of the dysfunctioning of the various labour markets, calls on the Commission and the Member States:

-to examine, in close cooperation with the two sides of industry, the way in which employment services and agencies operate and adapt, with a view to achieving the greatest possible decentralization towards local centres of employment and a more personal approach to each individual,

-while recognizing the positive role of public or private temporary employment agencies, to introduce rules to avoid the loss of permanent jobs, wherever possible, and calls on the Council to adopt forthwith the directive on atypical forms of employment,

-to give greater support to the specific employment programmes, for example YOUTHSTART, LEDA and ILE etc.,

-to ensure that the training programmes co-financed under Objectives 3 and 4 of the European Social Fund respond to the clearly identified needs of the labour markets,

-to promote the general flexibility of the employment markets - which are rigid in nature - and a personalized flexibility for workers who desire such an approach, while guaranteeing them adequate protection;

3.Considers that the financial resources provided for by the White Paper must be used, among other things, for implementing the Commission's fifth environmental action programme entitled 'Towards sustainable development', Agenda 21, which was adopted in Rio in June 1992, and the Community's environmental legislation;

4.Is convinced that Europe's economic future does not lie in competing with the newly industrialized countries and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe for market shares for 'old' products; considers it to be the European Union's foremost task to improve its competitiveness in advanced technologies and calls for a consistent and coherent European industrial policy on the basis of the new powers established in the Treaty on European Union;

5.Calls, in this context, for the creation of a concerted approach, involving the Commission, Parliament, the Member States of the EU, the scientific community and the two sides of industry to identify where action needs to be taken and to formulate industrial strategies;

6.Calls for the tax system to be restructured without revenue being affected, with taxes on labour reduced and a greater burden placed on pollution and the consumption of resources;

7.Condemns any strategy which is based exclusively on deregulation; stresses the need for balanced private and public-sector involvement in an ecological social market economy, which both stimulates market forces and provides a democratic framework for a socially and environmentally sound economy;

8.Takes the view that it is imperative for steps taken to make national employment markets more flexible to be accompanied, at Community level, by the common setting of minimum guarantees for workers; the tax burden on lower incomes should be removed, given their share in funding the social security system;

9.Subscribes to the view that the decentralized management of working time under the control of the two sides of industry can be a useful means of matching human resources to needs; believes that reducing working hours is not in itself an answer to the problem of unemployment and can only be meaningful as part of an active job creation policy; considers, however, that reductions in working time, negotiated at sectoral level and in individual firms, can help to bring down unemployment in the short term, provided that industrial competitiveness is preserved, notably by maintaining and even increasing the utilization of capacities;

10.Supports the objective of reducing the non-wage costs of unskilled labour to encourage fresh employment opportunities and to discourage the practice of substituting capital for labour; is opposed, however, to any attempt to use this objective as a way of cutting real wages;

11.Considers that mechanisms facilitating the transition towards a new development model which takes account of the social and environmental costs of our methods of production and patterns of consumption (as outlined in Chapter 10 of the White Paper) must be defined and applied;

12. Calls on the Commission to press ahead with its work on new economic indicators that take account of external effects, and especially on a method of calculating gross national product that deducts the cost of pollution associated with the production of goods;

13.Calls on the Commission and the Member States to promote, through sectoral agreements, greater use of part-time working as one way of creating additional jobs, provided that this is accompanied by social guarantees comparable to those applying to full-time working; calls on the Council to adopt forthwith the directive on parental leave;

14.Considers that a reduction in workers' wages and social security cover cannot provide a solution for combating the relocation of undertakings; on the one hand, factors other than wage levels, notably proximity to expanding markets, the availability of skilled labour and efficient infrastructures, influence decisions to relocate, and, on the other hand, any levelling downwards in people's purchasing power, either in the industrialized countries or in the countries of the South or Eastern Europe, is unacceptable, when it is known that the current economic crisis is above all caused by overproduction and an inequitable distribution of productivity gains;

15.Believes that growth can be stimulated by creating favourable framework conditions and eliminating red tape, in particular by removing restrictions which limit access to markets and improving advice on export opportunities in order to assist small and medium-sized undertakings; a permanent, open dialogue between the State and industry as part of an organized forum of discussion would be an advantage in this respect;

16.Advocates specific initiatives to create a favourable climate for SMEs, inter alia by systematically allowing them to participate in technological research and development programmes, by encouraging investment that will create jobs and by enabling SMEs to benefit more from the advantages of the internal market;

17.Calls on the Commission to promote, wherever possible, regional environmental consultancies for small and medium-sized firms;

18.Recognizes the important role of SMEs in creating jobs and calls for a programme to remove bureaucratic obstacles and legislative oncosts which hinder the progress of such enterprises;

Competitiveness - cost-cutting measures - infrastructure networks

19.Believes that the internal market which the Commission seeks in the 1985 White Paper must be completed and consolidated as soon as possible; savings may be made, in particular, by speeding up the work on common standards and mutual recognition of technical inspection certificates and the transitional arrangements for value-added tax;

20.Calls on the Commission to forward to it and to the Council proposals for plans of action which identify specific projects for improving the Union's infrastructure in the fields of transport (in particular rail, combined rail/road and river transport), energy (in particular the breaking up of monopolies and the development of renewable forms of energy), telecommunications and environmental protection (in particular with regard to waste management and water purification), the objectives of which can in fact be achieved within the timescales proposed; calls on the Council and the Commission to adopt a coherent strategy for the trans-European networks; at the same time, the Commission is to report on the funds that have so far been called into use indicating the proportion of the available funds that have not been allocated owing to lack of demand and stating how it ensures that the funds are used for the intended purpose in the Member States;

21.Points out that the construction and development of trans-European transport networks are of particular significance for employment within the Union, for completing the internal market and for trade with other countries in Europe; calls on the governments and parliaments of the Member States to fulfil their prime responsibility to take swift action with regard to the planning, financing and implementation of the trans-European transport projects; also calls on the other participants at the second Pan-European Transport Conference to be held in Crete in March 1994 to join with the European Union in committing themselves to effective procedures for the rapid establishment of pan-European transport networks;

Competitiveness - structural improvements

22.Stresses that the Community and the Member States must increase their input if they are to achieve the objective of devoting 3% of GDP to research and development; to this end appropriate incentives must be created for the private sector, in particular, by removing unnecessary administrative hurdles and improving cooperation between undertakings and universities throughout the Community;

23.Points out that the identification of promising areas of research requires a genuine partnership between the public and the private sectors with the minimum of bureaucratic decision-making procedures; the horizontal structures for research and development, including the protection of intellectual property both within the Community and beyond, should be strengthened to replace a vertical system of government guidelines;

24.Emphasizes the importance for competitiveness and the creation of secure jobs of promoting research and development relating to new eco-technologies;

25.Believes that improvements must be made in translating the results of research and development into marketable and competitive products; undertakings are called on, when developing marketable products on the basis of the results of research and development, to display greater willingness to take risks and to reform procedures and bureaucratic structures which hamper the development of such products;

26.Calls for a drive to improve skills which is based on the learning for life principle; calls, in this context, for equal opportunities for women and men to be taken into account consistently; Member States must accord priority to optimizing their vocational training systems in order to give those in work the opportunity to improve their vocational skills throughout their working life by means of training and further training; priority should be given to developing an efficient system of retraining the unemployed which must not overlook the needs of the labour market; at the same time, resources must be found for employing less well-skilled members of the labour force;

27.Believes that the price/quality ratio of European products may be improved by:

-placing greater emphasis on modernizing processes, e.g. by increasing their scale and improving quality in supply industries and by increasing emphasis on quality in large-scale industry by making better use of human potential (e.g. ideas at the workplace);

-lowering the cost of finance and introducing realistic exchange rates, e.g. for European currencies against the dollar; the interest rates charged on the money markets still need to fall in order to achieve this; and a new stage in monetary union must be reached as soon as possible through new and vigorous provisions aimed at encouraging greater use of the ECU as a common currency;

-the provision of incentives by local and national authorities and by the European Union for innovative projects which respond to pressing social needs;

28.Calls on the Commission to investigate the appropriateness of quantity control instruments, such as tradable environmental licences and an emissions register;

29.Calls for a study on social security funding to ascertain whether it can be financed from value-added tax revenue rather than tax on labour costs;

30.Believes that the work of the authorities must be subject to continuous critical review in order to ascertain whether they are meeting the desired objectives of mutual solidarity and equality and satisfying the requirement of adequate protection for common interests;

31.Urges the Commission and Member States to set an example by adopting high, sustainable environmental standards in their own procurement policies;

32.Points out that it is more likely that this can be achieved by delegating such work rather than simply reducing the public sector volume;

33.Advocates that a continuous review be carried out, based on a pragmatic approach, of the desired division of responsibilities between the authorities and the private sector with regard to the above objectives and firmly rejects ideological bias which focuses solely on the size of the public sector;

34.Believes that reducing the problem of inadequate European competitiveness exclusively to a labour-cost problem would constitute an incorrect and short-sighted approach and that the role of exchange rate policy and R&D in the sphere of innovation must also be taken into account;

35.Points out that

-the level of labour costs mirrors Europe's high productivity, so that price differences on sales markets are still only small;

-real increases in labour costs in Europe have been low and that the loss of competitiveness in terms of prices can be attributed to a much larger extent to changes in exchange rates (under-valuation of the dollar and associated currencies in terms of purchasing power parity, the cheap yen);

36.Believes that Europe's problem lies less in high labour costs, which further encourage higher productivity and hence output, than in the failure to establish new, innovative activities to provide sufficient growth in employment;

37.Recognizes that, compared with the US economy, Europe's economy lacks momentum, and therefore challenges Europe's private and public sectors to lay the foundations for fresh momentum without having to pay the high and increasing price in terms of social climate and quality of life which the US is paying;

38.Believes that the Commission is realistic in its analysis that there is a 2.5% 'employment threshold' in relation to growth, that is to say that only growth rates in excess of 2.5% will help to reduce the unacceptably high levels of unemployment;

39.Believes that reducing this threshold, which is based on increases in productivity and growth in the number of jobs available, is inadvisable and unrealistic;

40.Concludes that the unacceptably high and still mounting levels of unemployment must be combated by achieving sustainable growth in Europe of more than 3%; believes, however, that such growth must be qualitative and result in a reduction in the exploitation of natural resources and in pollution;

41.Notes that the general conditions for such qualitative growth may be established by the European Union by reorientating the system of taxation and creating incentives;

42.Notes also, however, that the success of any European renaissance is dependent on resolute cooperation by the Member States and trade and industry;

43.Calls on the Commission to insist on the consistent application of the environmental impact assessment procedure and to make the allocation of funds dependent on it;

II.Calls on the Commission to report to it regularly on the progress made with implementing the White Paper in order to assist preparation for the budgetary procedure and for the meetings of the European Council;

III.In view of the great number of important issues treated by the White Paper and their far-reaching implications for the Community, requests the Commission to organize as soon as possible a joint Commission-Parliament hearing to explore these matters in the depth which they deserve;

IV.Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the parliaments of the Member States.