The European Parliament,

–  having regard to last year’s preparatory report on the broad economic policy guidelines for 2007 (A6-0012/2007),

–  having regard to the conclusions of the Spring European Council of 9 March 2007, which set out the EU approach to energy and climate change,

–  having regard to the Commission communication ‘The European Interest: succeeding in the age of globalisation’ (COM(2007)0581),

–  having regard to the Commission communication ‘Time to move up a gear: the new partnership for growth and jobs’ (COM(2006)0030),

–  having regard to the Council decisions of 4 October 2004, 12 July 2005, 18 July 2006 and 10 July 2007 on guidelines for the employment policies of the Member States,

–  having regard to its legislative resolution on the guidelines for the employment policies of the Member States,(1)

–  having regard to the European Youth Pact, adopted by the European Council on 22 and 23 March 2005,

–  having regard to the European Pact for Gender Equality, adopted by the European Council on 23 and 24 March 2006,

–  having regard to the Commission communication, ‘Education and Training 2010: the success of the Lisbon Strategy hinges on urgent reforms’ (COM(2003)0685),

–  having regard to its resolution on the situation of people with disabilities in the enlarged European Union: the European Action Plan 2006-2007,(2)

–  having regard to the conclusions of the informal meeting of Ministers for Employment and Social Affairs in Guimarães on ‘12 key points to face the challenges ahead’ of 5 and 6 July 2007,

–  having regard to Rule 103(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A.  whereas the opportunity to review the Lisbon toolkit should be used to adapt the Integrated Guidelines in order to reflect new challenges and deal with deficiencies and the lack of coherence between the current commitments,

B.  whereas there is a strong interrelationship between economic growth, employment, work, the fight against poverty and social inclusion; whereas working poverty is increasingly highlighted as a key challenge in both employment and social inclusion policies; whereas it is therefore essential to re-balance the Integrated Guidelines to enable them to deliver on their social and environmental targets, and to consider the synergies between the different areas,

C.  whereas economic policy relates to the actions that governments have to take in the economic field in order to deliver sustainable development so as to meet the needs of EU citizens,

D.  whereas there is ample evidence suggesting that high rates of inflation, excessive macroeconomic imbalances, under-investment in human capital, overuse of resources and environmental degradation do not lead to sustainable development,

E.  whereas the European economy achieved better results in 2006 and exceeded those of previous years; however, following the financial volatility and taking account of the increased risks, the European Commission has revised the forecast for 2007 slightly down, to 2.5% for the euro area and 2.8% in the EU; whereas the current financial upsets which have led to the slight revision of the autumn forecasts by the European Commission could also mark a turning point in the economic cycle unless transparency of the markets and appropriate reactions by policy makers reaffirm consumers’ trust,

F.  whereas the enlarged EU, which represents one of the biggest markets in the world, with 500 million citizens, has become a global player and a main setter of global standards,

G.  whereas the process of liberalisation should not undermine the overriding objective of sustainable development,

H.  whereas the enlarged EU and its impact on the economy, as well as the political and socio‑cultural development of its Member States, require improved cooperation within the system of political decision making,

I.  whereas the interdependence within the euro area is stronger than in the EU as a whole, and whereas this does not yet translate into effective and coherent policy processes, in particular regarding the link between sound public finances, high-quality spending and investment in productivity-growth strategies,

J.  whereas policy makers must identify, clearly state and address the common challenges which EU economies are facing and will face in the forthcoming years when defining broad EU economic policy guidelines,

K.  whereas awareness and active support by EU citizens is a precondition for successful implementation of economic-policy actions,

L.  whereas the European Employment Strategy has lost visibility, monitoring capacity and participatory impetus under the renewed Lisbon Strategy, in particular in the National Reform Programmes (NRPs) and the implementation reports,

M.  whereas the implementation reports on the NRPs show that the weakest policy implementations are in the area of improving the adaptability of workers and enterprises and stepping up investment in education and training,

N.  whereas the abovementioned informal meeting of Ministers for Employment and Social Affairs in Guimarães concluded that social inclusion is a fundamental dimension of sustainable development strategies in Europe, as it provides the tools to create opportunities for all and has positive effects on employment, skills and human development,

O.  whereas many measures in the NRP process have clear effects on social inclusion policies, especially measures targeting employment, while social inclusion objectives and policies are still often absent from the NRP process,

P.  whereas it is crucial to set the appropriate framework for globalisation so that it contributes to sustainable development,

External policies

1.  Points out that the EU is one of the main drivers of an economic globalisation policy that has led to accelerated environmental degradation and growing social imbalances within the EU and worldwide, and therefore bears a high political responsibility for rectifying this course through active promotion of high social and environmental standards for all economic activities;

2.  Is of the opinion that climate change is the result of the greatest market failure the world has ever seen, since the failure to include the costs of climate change in market prices has carried huge economic, social and environmental costs; regrets in this context that the Commission makes its priority the further breaking down of barriers to trade and investment, without taking sufficient account of the social or environmental costs incurred by an increased volume of international trade;

3.  Notes that the EU’s industrial production is bound by CO2 emission reduction targets, whilst that of some of the EU’s major trading partners is exempt from such binding targets; calls on the Commission to tackle this form of environmental dumping, to propose measures to compensate for the resulting competitive disadvantage of EU producers and to provide trading partners with incentives for emission reduction, such as border tax adjustments and positive trade measures, in line with the recommendations of the high‑level group on competitiveness, energy and the environment;

4.  Stresses that the EU can achieve its Lisbon objectives internally only by being active and united on the global stage; welcomes, therefore, the intention to develop a coherent external dimension of the Lisbon Strategy; considers that a comprehensive external policy approach focusing on regulatory cooperation, convergence of standards and equivalence of rules must promote fair competition and trade while respecting the policy space of the EU and its trading partners within which to set their own social and environmental policy goals;

5.  Emphasises the emerging importance of the EU as a global political player; considers that, as such, it has a strong responsibility to help tackle the most urgent problems resulting from economic globalisation, namely the growing social imbalances within and among economic systems and the unchecked destruction of the global environmental commons, and to set common foreign economic policy tools which take adequate account of the external impacts of the EU’s single-market policies;

6.  Emphasises that shifts in exchange rates deriving from mounting imbalances in non-EU countries raise competitive pressure on EU companies, and identifies the need for an EU response in the form of international agreements and cooperation geared to the setting-up of fluctuation bands among the main currencies and the creation of EU competitive advantages, and of a sufficiently responsive EU and eurozone economic and monetary policy;

7.  Is of the opinion that the surge in demand for natural resources, basic products and services driven by the growth of developing economies may bring about inflationary pressure on the EU Member States’ economies; considers that strategies of smart technological growth and anti-inflationary economic policy tools and a framework for possible macroeconomic adjustment, together with strategies to reduce total resource consumption and the environmental footprint of economies should be prepared in order to address this problem;

8.  Welcomes the Commission’s intention further to develop regulatory cooperation, convergence of standards and equivalence of rules in its discussions with third countries; warns, however, – as envisioned in the EU’s ‘Global Europe’ strategy – about giving trading partners a formal right to early intervention in standard-setting EU legislative processes, especially if they relate to social and environmental standards; calls on the Commission, in order to combat social dumping, to include systematically a Sustainable Development chapter in its trade and cooperation agreements with third countries, requiring the ratification and enforcement of core International Labour Organisation standards and the principles of Decent Work, and to apply its social values and principles when concluding agreements with third countries; takes the view that this requires this chapter to be the subject to the standard Dispute Settlement Mechanisms of trade agreements;

Internal policies

Bridge between Strategies for Social Protection and Social Inclusion and Integrated Guidelines

9.  Welcomes the Commission’s statement that more attention will be given to active inclusion and equal opportunities, that adequate social protection should be promoted and the fight against poverty reinforced and that more effective means of ensuring citizens’ existing rights of access to employment, education, social services, health care and other forms of social protection are needed across Europe;

10.  Stresses the need to ensure and improve the integration and visibility of the social dimension in the next cycle of the Lisbon Strategy, and, in particular, in the Integrated Guidelines; considers that there is an urgent need to overcome the existing imbalance in the Employment Guidelines, which fail to give weight to certain basic social objectives, such as those reducing the number of working poor and increasing access to high-quality employment, education, health care and other forms of social protection for all; invites the Commission to adapt the Integrated Guidelines in order to face up to the new challenges and overcome those shortcomings;

11.  Invites the Commission and the Member States to adopt a systematic approach ensuring effective coherence between the NRP process on growth and more and better jobs on the one hand and the social protection and the social inclusion process on the other;

Implementation of Employment Guidelines

12.  Asks the Commission to improve its leadership in monitoring implementation of the Employment Guidelines by ensuring that Member States fully apply the European Employment Strategy indicators and targets, lifelong learning instruments and measures set out in the European Youth Pact, the European Pact for Gender Equality and the EU’s Disability Action Plan 2006-2007; asks that all these commitments, targets and benchmarks be fully incorporated in the Integrated Guidelines in order to improve coherence and efficiency of the Employment Strategy, points to the shortcomings in achieving gender equality, which are indicated by, for example, the female employment rate still being below target and the remaining gender pay gap; therefore requests the reintroduction of the 4th pillar of the Employment Guidelines – ‘Strengthening Equal Opportunities Policies For Women And Men’;

13.  Underlines the great importance of enhancing the strategic capacities of employment policies; asks the Commission and the Member States to pay particular attention in their coordination processes to the quality of jobs, the reconciliation of work, family and personal life, the quality and availability of education and training for all, the implementation of anti-discrimination legislation, the strengthening of equal opportunity policies for women and men, and immigration issues;

14.  Urges that references to flexicurity in the Integrated Guidelines should be based on a balanced set of principles and rights, developed in consultation with the social partners, which highlight the central role of training and retraining, active labour market policies which are rights-based and user-oriented, adequate and more inclusive social protection to motivate towards flexibility, and the breakdown of labour market segmentation and exclusion by ensuring rights for all workers;

Economic policies

15.  Notes that EU citizens are worried that enhanced competition driven by enlargement, integration and labour mobility shifts traditional working patterns to flexicurity models, and believes that these worries should be addressed through policy actions that create new forms of security, as well as expanding the supply and improving the quality of those public goods and services that, over time, can help to augment productivity growth and inclusive labour market policies;

16.  Underlines that there are significant spill-over effects among Member State economies; stresses in this context that improved coordination on both sound fiscal policies and high‑quality public finances, including essential ‘Lisbon investments’, is of crucial importance; calls, therefore, for the establishment of a new macro-economic policy coordination priority in addition to the four Lisbon priorities; supports an integrative policy reflecting the requirements of the reformed Stability and Growth Pact and setting targets for the new generation of Integrated Guidelines, with concrete references to coordinated investment activities and high-quality public spending;

17.  Expresses its concern at the fact that the Commission considers that the Integrated Policy Guidelines are fulfilling their role and that no major revision is required; urges the Commission not to disconnect environmental policies from economic and employment policy; takes the view that the fight against climate change must constitute the backbone of the review of the ‘three-year Lisbon cycle’;

18.  Regrets also that the Commission seems again to take the view that the social and environmental goals of the Lisbon-Göteborg Strategy will automatically result from opening markets around the world, while neglecting the role of the public sector in providing public goods and universal protection against social risks such as unemployment and poverty; emphasises that the Employment Guidelines should not be subordinated to the Broad Economic Guidelines, but that these two sets of guidelines should be better integrated;

19.  Calls on the Commission to take full account of the external social and environmental costs resulting from further liberalisation in its review of the Integrated Policy Guidelines for achieving the Lisbon Strategy;

20.  Urges the Commission to develop a consistent integrated policy on sustainable development, which implies, for example, the setting-up of tax reforms that shift taxation from labour to environmental degradation; takes the view that if the EU is serious about tackling climate change, priority should be given, inter alia, to an energy and climate change package; emphasises in this context the role of energy taxation, emissions trading and ecodesign requirements for energy-using products as important tools for stimulating the development of a large leading-edge market for energy-efficient technologies and products or of applying the polluter-pay principle; warns also against increasing the risks linked to nuclear energy and biofuels based on false claims of climate-friendliness;

21.  Is of the opinion that financial market transparency, effective competition rules and appropriate regulation and supervision will continue to be crucial in view of the globalisation of financial markets and of the need to ensure consumer rights; calls on the Commission, therefore, to elaborate the financial market issues into European-wide initiatives in the framework of the Community’s Lisbon programme;

22.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to defend consumer rights and expectations by strict enforcement of product safety laws and, particularly, toy safety laws, and to step up efforts to improve market surveillance, national inspections and bans on dangerous products of unidentified source, and to prevent noncompliant or unsafe products from being placed on the market or to ensure that they are withdrawn or recalled from the market, including when there is evidence of deceptive behaviour and/or use of fraudulent or misleading origin markings by foreign producers and importers;

23.  Acknowledges that Europe needs faster transformation of innovation into new products and services; supports, therefore, the Commission’s demand for a ‘knowledge triangle’ of research, education and innovation; expects more effective investment in new skills, lifelong learning and modern education and training systems;

24.  Advocates the need to support a restructuring of the economy driven by innovation in managerial processes, procedures and organisational structures; is of the opinion that new companies in this field need more access to capital and more creativity and that they offer many opportunities for small businesses and the younger generation;

25.  Believes that improvement of productivity in market, distribution and financial services could be achieved by broadening and strengthening coordination of economic reforms in different Member States, in particular within the eurozone, and modernising the economy by increasing our efforts in investments in technology; supports an integrated economic governance approach based on the added value of integration;

Institutional arrangements

26.  Takes note of the proposal in the Commission’s interim report to bring the different EU policy initiatives together in the interests of responding coherently to internal and external challenges; calls in this context for the development of an ‘EU smart green growth initiative’ bringing together all the main existing EU economic instruments, namely the Stability and Growth Pact, the Integrated Guidelines and the Sustainable Development Strategy; urges the Commission to present genuinely updated Integrated Guidelines for 2008-2010;

27.  Believes that EU institutional developments should facilitate efficient coordination of economic policies and ensure consistency between the Integrated Guidelines and the National Reform Programmes; calls on the Commission, therefore, to ensure stronger references to the Integrated Guidelines in the National Reform Programmes and country‑specific recommendations to Member States by setting up indicators measuring the performance of Member States;

28.  Points out that transparency of the work performed by the Eurogroup, the Economic and Financial Committee (EFC), the Financial Services Committee (FSC) and the Economic Policy Committee (EPC) is vital for efficient coordination and implementation of EU economic policy actions;

29.  Is convinced that improved ownership and better understanding of the Europe-wide reform program is necessary and that the role of the European Parliament and the national parliaments needs to be strengthened, together with the formations of the Council of Ministers engaged in setting economic strategy;

30.  Is of the opinion that ‘EU Lisbon governance’ still needs to be improved, in particular regarding the following aspects: closer coordination among relevant formations of the Council of Ministers, with particular emphasis on properly coordinated National Reform Programmes, allowing sufficient time for Member States to draw up their National Reform Programmes by finally updating or confirming the Integrated Guidelines at the yearly EU Spring Council, and full consultation rights for the EP;

31.  Regrets once again that a clear plan and code of practice has still not been agreed between Parliament, the Council and the Commission which would guarantee appropriate cooperation and the full involvement of the three EU institutions concerned in the appropriate further handling of the integrated policy guidelines as key instruments of the Lisbon Strategy; calls in this connection on the Council and the Commission to submit forthwith proposals for close cooperation between the three EU institutions with a view to the impending revision of the integrated policy guidelines;

Stakeholder involvement

32.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to promote ownership and enhance the involvement of the national parliaments, regional and local authorities, the social partners and civil society stakeholders in the framework of the Lisbon Strategy and, in particular, within the National Reform Programme process;

33.  Welcomes the proposed Commission consultation with SMEs and their representatives and the subsequent design of ‘The Small Businesses Act’ for Europe; hopes that the voice of small businesses will be heard in the social dialogue and that the principle of ‘think small first’ will be fully integrated into policy making;

Timing

34.  Looks forward to fulfilling its consultative role, as defined in Article 128(2) of the Treaty, in the revision of the Employment Guidelines; urges the Commission and the Council to allow Parliament the necessary time, and in any event no less than five months, to carry out its duty;

35.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the Parliaments and Governments of the Member States.

(1) Texts adopted, P6_TA(2007)0048. (2) OJ C 316 E, 22.12.2006, p. 370.