European Social Policy articles from December 2008

European Social Policy archives from December 2008

INTERVIEW WITH ALI JEAN ERIC ALIRA, DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE OF LOWER SILESIA : "EUROPE MUST HAVE CONFIDENCE IN FOREIGNERS".(Interview)
December 8, 2008... Councillor in the regional assembly of Lower Silesia (south-west of Poland) since 2003, Ali Jean Eric Alira is also, among others, the founding president of the Poland-Africa association for integration. Originally from Burkina Faso, he passed...

EUROPE STRUGGLING WITH CULTURAL INTEGRATION.
December 8, 2008... Integration is uppermost on everyone's minds, starting with the EU ministers in charge of immigration. Recently the European regions also adopted their own declaration (see separate article). But what precisely is meant by the integration of...

LISBON TREATY : FAVOURABLE CZECH COURT RULING LEAVES IRELAND MORE ISOLATED.
December 8, 2008... The Czech Constitutional Court decided, on 26 November, that "the Lisbon Treaty does not contradict the constitutional order" of the country. This decision opens the way to ratification through the parliament, probably in early 2009. If the...

REGIONS AND MIGRATION - SPECIAL DOSSIER : REGIONS READY TO BETTER INTEGRATE MIGRANTS.(Reprint)
December 8, 2008... Stuck between national competences and local realities, Europe's regions are committed to acting in several fields to improve the integration conditions for their migrants. Under the momentum of their new President, French Socialist Michele...

DRUGS : REPORT: HEROIN ABUSE RIFE IN EUROPE.(European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction)
December 8, 2008... Many believed in a "slow improvement" in the use of opiates, particularly heroin, but this slowed to a crawl in 2007. This is the "worrying" observation that comes from the annual report from European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug...

IMMIGRATION : 40% OF EU IMMIGRANTS ARE FROM MEMBER STATES.(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Immigration in Europe is an important intra-European phenomenon, according to statistics released by Eurostat, on 18 Novembers. In 2006, EU27 citizens migrating to a member state of which they were not citizens accounted for 40% of foreign...

60 MN EURO TO NEW TEMPUS PROJECTS.(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Some 63 university cooperation and 13 other high quality projects in all 28 Tempus Programme partner countries have been given approval by the European Commission under the new, fourth, phase of Tempus. Financed by a budget of 60 million, 600...

GLOBALISATION ADJUSTMENT FUND : AID TO SPAIN AND LITHUANIA.(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... On 3 December, the European Commission made two payments from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF): a payment of 10.4 million was made to Spain in order to help some 1,600 workers made redundant when the American multinational...

A SPIN ON A CRASH.(spin-doctoring)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... The European Commission has a gift for spin-doctoring: it made the false start of the European online library, Europeana, a resounding success. Europeana had to be "temporarily" closed due to excess traffic less than 24 hours after its...

IMMIGRATION : COMMISSION ADOPTS TEN NATIONAL PROGRAMMES.
December 8, 2008... After adoption of the political declaration represented by the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum, the time for budgetary realities has arrived. The European Commission adopted, on 6 November, ten national programmes with their respective...

IMMIGRATION : COMMISSION ADOPTS THIRTEEN NATIONAL PROGRAMMES.
December 8, 2008... The European Commission adopted, on 1 December, a new set of multiannual programmes - 13 in all - each with its own budget, under four European funds: the European Fund for integration of third-country nationals, the European Return Fund, the...

ECONOMIC POLICY : COMMISSION PROPOSES 200 BN EURO STIMULUS PLAN.
December 8, 2008... The European Commission attempted, on 26 November, to give a European framework to the measures for economic recovery planned or announced by the governments of member states. Totalling the national plans, the European Investment Bank's (EIB)...

ASYLUM : COMMISSION PUTS REFUGEES BACK AT HEART OF SYSTEM.
December 8, 2008... Believing that in Europe the "procedure is little concerned with asylum applicants," the European Commission proposed, on 3 December, improving the Dublin II(1) system, which is considered to be unfair to refugees. At the same time, the EU...

EQUALITY POLICY : COMPANIES URGED TO CLOSE GENDER GAP.
December 8, 2008... By 2010, a "European network of the leading companies" committed to professional equality between women and men should be created, announced French Employment Minister Xavier Bertrand, who was chairing an informal meeting of EU ministers...

IMMIGRATION : CONSTRUCTION SMES REFUSE TO PAY REPATRIATION COSTS.(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Europe's small and medium-sized construction companies refuse to pay the cost of repatriating third-country illegal immigrants they may have employed. Through their European Builders Confederation (EBC), they denounce the vote by the European...

FREE MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE : COURT RESTRICTS RIGHT TO OBTAIN STUDY ALLOWANCES.(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... European students who want to study abroad within the EU may be asked to be a legal citizen of that other EU country for five years first before they are entitled to receive study allowance from that country. This emerges from a verdict of the...

MULTILINGUALISM : ENGLISH BECOMING DOMINANT IN EDUCATION.
December 8, 2008... English is the most commonly learnt language in virtually all out of 31 European countries studied. It is mandatory in 13 other European countries, according to a new report by the Eurydice Network, the EU's information network on education....

WORKING TIME DIRECTIVE : EP COMMITTEE SAYS NO' TO COUNCIL.
December 8, 2008... In what amounts to a loud and clear no' to the Council's common position, the European Parliament's Committee on Employment and Social Affairs voted, on 5 November, with a clear majority in favour of the second-reading report Organisation of...

ECONOMIC POLICY : ETUC: TIME TO ACT ON THE DEMAND SIDE.(European Trade Union Confederation)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Confronted with a financial crisis and a prolonged slowdown, Europe must urgently encourage demand, believes the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). The day before the presentation by the European Commission of a recovery plan at...

INTERVIEW WITH XAVIER DARCOS, FRENCH EDUCATION MINISTER : "EU COOPERATION CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT".(Interview)
December 8, 2008... Cooperation at European level in schooling and professional training helps improve education systems and favours the mobility of young people, which may be a competitive advantage for the Union, says Xavier Darcos, the French education minister...

PUBLIC HEALTH : EU EXECUTIVE ZOOMS IN ON RARE DISEASES.
December 8, 2008... The rarer a disease, the rarer is the expertise needed to treat it. The European Commission wants to bring patients suffering from rare diseases out of the shadows and has proposed a strategy for a coordinated and integrated mobilisation of...

UNEMPLOYMENT : EU JOBLESS RATE CONTINUES TO CLIMB.(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... As a result of the financial and economic crisis, the eurozone's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 7.7% in October 2008, compared with 7.6% in September 2008 and 7.3% in October 2007. In the EU27, the unemployment rate was 7.1% in...

FAILURE TO RECOGNISE MEDICAL QUALIFICATIONS.(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... The European Commission will take Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and the Netherlands to the EU Court of Justice for failure to notify measures for the transposition of Directive 2005/36/EC on the recognition of professional qualifications. The...

SOCIAL POLICY : FIGHT IS ON OVER WORKING TIME.
December 8, 2008... While the trade unions use war language', saying they have 'won the first battle,' the employers' organisations are still looking for words to express their disappointment and amazement over the rejection by the European Parliament's...

EMPLOYMENT : GENDER GAP IN JOBS NARROWS.(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... In 2007 in the EU, the employment rate was 72.5% for men and 58.3% for women, compared with 70.7% and 53.6%, respectively, in 2000. This means that employment rates for both men and women have increased over this period, and that the difference...

GLOBALISATION AID IN ITALY.(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... The Council of Ministers decided, without debate on 21 November, to give a grant of 35.2 million from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund to Italy. This decision follows almost 6,000 redundancies in the textile sector due to the...

HOUSING COUNCIL : HOUSING, A VICTIM OF THE CRISIS.
December 8, 2008... The majority of EU member states must today face a considerable number of people excluded through housing. "In many member states, a considerable proportion of the population, and not only the most vulnerable, can no longer find housing under...

ITALY AND ESTONIA TAKEN TO COURT.(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Estonia and Italy are being taken to court for their failure to transpose EU legislation on the mutual recognition of seafarers' certificates issued by the member states (Directive 2005/45/EC). The European Commission decided, on 27 November,...

EMPLOYMENT REPORT : LISBON TARGET UNLIKELY TO BE MET BY 2010.
December 8, 2008... The worsening economic environment is creating more risks for employment and labour productivity growth in the near future. This is one of the key messages of the Employment in Europe Report 2008', adopted by the European Commission on 18...

IMMIGRATION : MEPS BACK SANCTIONS AGAINST EMPLOYERS OF ILLEGAL MIGRANTS.
December 8, 2008... The European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee voted overwhelmingly in favour of two reports which lay the groundwork for chosen immigration' in the EU, on 4 November in Brussels. It is a question of creating a European blue card', which...

WORKS COUNCILS : MEPS COME ROUND TO SOCIAL PARTNERS' THINKING.(Members of the Parliament)
December 8, 2008... The new version of the Works Councils Directive could, as desired by the French EU Presidency, be approved at the Social Affairs Council of 15-16 December. It was, in fact, approved - on 17 November - by the European Parliament's Committee on...

SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEMS : MEPS DISCUSS ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL IMPACT OF AGEING.
December 8, 2008... Out of increasing concern about the future of the national social security systems of the EU member states, MEPs adopted an own-initiative report from the Employment Committee, drafted by the German Gabriele Stauner (EPP-ED), on 20 November in...

JUSTICE COUNCIL : MINISTERS AGREE TO MAKE RACISM A CRIMINAL OFFENCE.
December 8, 2008... The EU's justice ministers finally agreed, on 28 November in Brussels, to make certain forms of racism and xenophobia a criminal offence, after the countries with the most misgivings over restricting freedom of expression, eg Sweden, waived...

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION : MINISTERS PUSH TRANSNATIONAL MOBILITY AND BORDERLESS LEARNING.
December 8, 2008... Strengthening the links between vocational education and training (VET) and the labour market is the main thrust of the Bordeaux communique' adopted by ministers at the close of the informal Education Council that took place in the said city...

SPORTS : MINISTERS TACKLE FIFA 6+5' RULE.
December 8, 2008... Dialogue with sports organisations and the composition of football teams were two of the main themes of the informal meeting of EU sports ministers, held in Biarritz on 27 and 28 November. Although sport is not an EU competency, a joint...

NEW STATS ON EMPLOYERS AND JOB CREATION.(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... In a new Eurostat document, entitled Business demography in Europe: Employers and job creation', fresh data on employer enterprises are contrasted for the first time with business demography data. The latter come from existing harmonised data...

ECONOMIC POLICY : NO ECONOMIC RECOVERY WITHOUT SMES, SAYS UEAPME.(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Europe must do more to foster its small and medium-sized enterprise sector and leverage its potential to find ways out of the current economic crisis, according to UEAPME, the European craft and SME employers' organisation. Meeting in Prague...

EDUCATION COUNCIL : ORBAN: TRANSLATION A "VERY COSTLY" BUSINESS.(Leonard Orban)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... "Let me be clear: it is impossible to translate everything, but we are making efforts to improve our website in this respect every day," said Leonard Orban, the commissioner for multilingualism, responding to a question regarding the lack of...

IMMIGRATION : PARLIAMENT CAUTIOUSLY BACKS BLUE CARD' SCHEME.
December 8, 2008... The EU blue card' plan received backing from MEPs, on 20 November in Strasbourg (388 votes in favour, 56 against and 124 abstentions). This card, patterned on the US Green Card, is meant to attract highly skilled immigrants to take jobs in the...

AGRICULTURE : POLITICAL AGREEMENT ON SCHOOL FRUIT SCHEME.
December 8, 2008... The EU's agriculture ministers reached a political agreement, on 19 November in Brussels, on the implementation, from the 2009 school year, of a distribution programme for free fruit in EU schools. A total of 90 million will be used each year...

IMMIGRATION : PUBLIC BACKS EU ROLE IN SETTING POLICY.(European Union)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... The general public in Europe thinks immigration policy should be set at EU level but there are sharp divergences between EU countries. Some 53% of Europeans support a policy-making role for the EU, ranging from 68% support in Italy to 28% in...

REASONED OPINION TO SIX STATES.(Austria, Lithuania, Slovenia, Hungary, Italy and Malta)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Austria, Lithuania, Slovenia, Hungary, Italy and Malta have received a reasoned opinion (second stage of infringement proceedings) for their failure to transpose Directivea2002/73/EC on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for...

DEMOGRAPHY : REPORT HIGHLIGHTS IMPLICATIONS OF AGEING ON FAMILY POLICIES.
December 8, 2008... The ageing of the population and the pronounced evolution in the family and household patterns in the EU are the two main themes of the Demography Report, published by the European Commission, on 21 November(1). The report is published every...

FREE MOVEMENT OF LABOUR : SPIDLA URGES MEMBER STATES TO OPEN THEIR LABOUR MARKETS.
December 8, 2008... "The right to work in another country is a fundamental freedom for EU citizens. Restricting this in a democratic system can only be possible if you have a very good reason," said Employment Commissioner Vladimir Spidla when he presented a...

SOCIAL PARTNERS : STIMULUS PLAN MEETS PRAISE AND CRITICISM.
December 8, 2008... The social partners generally welcomed the economic recovery plans presented by the European Commission on 27 November. However, critical remarks were also expressed, arguing that the plan focuses too much on the automotive sector and on the...

HOUSING : STRUCTURAL FUNDS TO AID LOW-INCOME HOUSEHOLDS.
December 8, 2008... Financing energy investments in housing with support from the European Structural Funds will soon be possible in all the EU member states, an option only offered to the new' member states at present. As announced by Regional Policy...

QUALITY OF LIFE : SURVEY GAUGES EUROPEANS' HAPPINESS.(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Europeans are "generally satisfied" with their quality of life, although significant differences can be detected between the citizens' level of satisfaction in the EU's old' and new' member states (the former are generally happier), or between...

SURVEY LOOKS AT HOW THE ELDERLY FARE.(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Women live longer than men, especially in the south of Europe, but men tend to be healthier, especially in the north - where people tend to eat less than their fellow EU citizens from the south. Furthermore, the importance of family (time spent...

ELECTRICITY : TOOL KIT ON INDUSTRY RESTRUCTURING.(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... The social partners in the electricity industry, with Eurelectric representing employers and the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) as well as the European Mine, Chemical and Energy Workers` Federation (EMCEF), presented the...

HEALTH : TROPICAL DISEASE RESEARCH REQUIRES INCREASED FUNDING.
December 8, 2008... On the occasion of a conference at the European Commission, on 12-13 November, on HIV-AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis (TB), Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) launched a report calling for more research funding from the Commission for vaccines,...

TEMPORARY AGENCY WORK : UNIONS, INDUSTRY JOIN FORCES TO FIGHT FOR "FAIR CONDITIONS".(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... UNI, the global union for skills and services (representing 900 individual trade unions) and the corporate members of Ciett, the International Confederation of Private Employment Agencies, have decided to combine forces to fight for "fair...

FREE MOVEMENT OF LABOUR : WORKERS FROM EAST FILL IN MARKET GAPS.(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Job mobility does not cause severe disturbances in local wages and employment rates in the post-enlargement era. The free movement of workers has in fact contributed to economic growth due to its labour market and skills shortage impact, says...