Amjad Bashir, on behalf of the ECR Group. – Mr President, in this report the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has added a long wish-list to the guidelines to Member States that talks a lot about a high level of employment and decent working conditions. Of course we all want this, everybody does, but the reality is that if we want any of these hopes and dreams to come true, if we want more jobs for our young people, serious labour market reforms are needed to make the workforce more flexible and help businesses to grow.

In the UK, this process began in 2010 with the new Conservative Government and figures released today show that unemployment is now at 4.8%, with three quarters of new jobs in the past year being full-time work. But the main issue I want to raise here is an issue of competence. With this report the European Parliament is trying once again to have more and more say over policies. We firmly believe it should remain a competence of the Member States.

As a group, we have long held the view that the sharing of good practice in this area is a good thing, but adding a long wish-list to what has already been agreed by the Member States is not the right approach. Let us look at what works well and help to share that experience for the good of all Member States, our citizens, and especially for our young people.