Structural reforms and macro-economic policy - ETUC

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Structural reforms and macro-economic policy / 44 At the end of the day, the ownership of the NRPs remains national. Unlike at the OECD, where the OECD secretariat drafts the so-called country reports, EU member states are responsible for delivering the reports and are free to set their own priorities. The new forward-looking approach in the NRP may change the European Commission’s influence over national policy-making. In particular, the new threeyear cycle would allow for more time to translate EEGs into the national policy-making framework. Yet whether policy advice from the European Commission in the new enhanced bilateral contacts will have substantial effects on the NRP is an open question. The bilan for delivery in OECDs Jobs study, which seems to have been an important source of inspiration for the reforms on implementation, is at best mixed (see Noaksson and Jacobsson (2003) for a detailed comparison between the EES and the OECD Jobs Study). It is also uncertain whether the EU Commission’s reforms, if fully implemented, might bring about convergence of outcomes without also (falling into the trap of) converging policy design (which is solely a national responsibility). Moreover, there is an ongoing discussion in the EU as to whether or not country-specific recommendations should be more or less binding on member states.The 2006 Spring Council decided to scrap the countryspecific recommendations to member states 5 . Along the same lines is the decision to reduce the number of indicators. Will this serve the purpose of better implementation? These reforms are founded on the argument that there is a better chance of effective implementation if the EU guidelines are softened and the monitoring and learning mechanisms are strengthened. Yet the reforms by the EU Commission seem misguided on many counts: The first round of NRP can be described as a patchwork: there is a reduced use of targets (thus a reduced level of ambition). Few countries have nominated a Mr or Mrs Lisbon, and if they have, these are unknown to the general public.The NRPs are less comparable, in contrast to the old NAPs. The lack of contextual country-specific recommendations would weaken the peer review and, in turn, weaken the EU policy message nationally. National parliaments have barely been consulted: on a scoreboard from 1-12 measuring national ownership in the EU, the average EU 15 score is below 6 (Pisani-Ferry and Sapir 2006). In addition, the national media are unaware of the existence of NRPs (ibid). Moreover, strong reservations have been raised about the watering down of the consultation with the social partners in the process leading up to the NRP (joint declaration by ETUC and others 2006). On the basis of a few provisional evaluations of the first round of NRPs, we conclude that the EU Commission’s reforms are likely to prove incapable of reducing the delivery gap. Our policy stance therefore consists in working towards a better procedure, while also attempting to become more realistic in the expectations we project upon the OMC. In other words, we perhaps need to learn to expect less, in order to obtain, in the long run, better results. This means that we will seek to develop the OMC procedure, which needs to become more transparent and participatory, more democratically accountable, and adequately funded. Another key issue is obviously to improve the peer review process. Some very specialised studies have been conducted on this particular aspect, which falls outside the boundaries of this report. For proposals to that end, see for example Casey (2005). The issue in question is then how to reconcile the goals of retaining decision-making authority at national level and finding a way of improving delivery of EU guidelines nationally.We will now address this question. 5. Seizing the potential of the OMC for the future Arguably, the OMC should be developed in the light of its own premises, which advocate voluntary learning, self-correction, innovation, experimentation, broad participation, democratic legitimacy, etc. A necessary condition for learning is a deeper commitment on the part of member states (Zeitlin and Pochet 2005). And the commitment is voluntary, depending all the way on the willingness of national actors (Serrano Pascual 2003). This will be the starting point for our policy approach 6 . 5 Nikolaus Van der Pas, General Director of the EU Employment directorate, has stated that country-specific recommendations will be reinstalled again in 2007 (ETUC macroeconomic conference, March 2006). 6 Though this report is about process and not content, certainly makes no sense to improve the process of bad policy content. Accordingly, it is critical to refer readers to another report which deals with the imbalance between economic objectives and employment. As long as the Employment Guidelines are subordinated to the dominant economic doctrine, entitled the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines, improving the process will be a small achievement. The rebalancing exercise must include setting the OMC in employment on an equal footing with the BEPG. And more fundamentally, there is a need for substantial reform of the ECB (see Noaksson 2006). See also Goetschy (2005), who concludes that marginal reforms cannot change the economic constraints affecting EU social integration.
5.1 National parliaments to adopt National Reform Programmes As we have seen, member states are less likely to comply with guidelines that are costly, long-term and opposed to their political aspirations. Governments sometimes act as gatekeepers to deny entrance to policies which they prefer not to transfer to the national level. Today’s ALMP are by and large financed at national level. How can the connection between funding and policy implementation be enhanced? One efficient means of increasing political commitment, and of making sure that policies are backed up with funding, would be to have the NRPs adopted in national parliaments. That would resolve the problem of mutual learning at EU level being separated from policy-making at national level.This idea has already gained political support in both the European Parliament and the Committee of the Regions (European Parliament 2003), and the relevance of this proposal is reinforced insofar as the NRP is no longer a backward-looking document but actually a road map for reforms to be implemented nationally. The disadvantage is of course that it would be more difficult to find binding majorities in the Council for the integrated guidelines. Yet once adopted at EU level, and subsequently nationally, policies will indeed be implemented. In a concerted effort to reduce the delivery gap, the importance of this argument must not be neglected. 5.2 Increased transparency and participation The new bilateral contacts between the European Commission and the member states require openness and transparency and the inclusion of all actors involved. Yet it is not clear from the Commission’s documents how the bilateral meetings are supposed to be organised. This paper argues that the meetings in the bilateral contacts between the European Commission and the member states should be open to all stakeholders (government, the social partners, and opposition parties). Learning via vertical integration is obstructed by government gatekeepers who prevent information from being shared with a broad range of actors. The production of NAPs in employment has so far been a rather closed governmental process, involving the social partners to varying degrees. This could explain some of the limits on the policy learning that has taken place. If sub-national actors are excluded from the process, they will be less committed to implementation. Yet the crucial question remains whether the actors should be policy-makers or only policy- takers? The social partners are indeed the most relevant actors in labour market policy-making.Thus, their active involvement in the NRP is of central importance. However, Jacobsson and Schmid (2002) have exposed a potential paradox: the more open a process becomes to wider stakeholders nationally and sub-nationally, the less open it is likely to be to European convergence ambitions. We are inclined to find a middle way so as not to obstruct the convergence of outcomes at EU level, to which all member states have agreed. There is a need for enhanced consultation with the social partners nationally in drafting the National Reform Programmes in employment. In return, the social partners should be committed to dissemination of the National Reform Programmes and the European Employment Strategy in their branches at regional and local level. 5.3 Financial incentives The above recommendation of adopting the NRPs in national parliaments will ensure that policy proposals receive adequate funding. But we also aim to explore new innovative forms of ALMP. To that end, more funding from the EU Structural Funds should be reallocated. The European Social Fund has not been successful in fostering a bottom-up approach in the EES. The ESF projects tend to be temporary in character and with little feedback to the NAP work. Moreover, there is a need for improved organisation between national and sub-national levels in order to learn from successful ESF projects (and in other cases, to learn what not to do) nationally, and for the information to be spread to the European level. Member states need to establish a more co-ordinated organisation with regard to ESF projects, so that the projects at local and/or regional level can feed back into the national and European level, and in the end, increase the mutual bottom-up learning process. What is more, there is a need to encourage member states to comply with country-specific recommendations. One possible efficient way is to ease the financial burden of undertaking reforms at national level. This could be tested, for example, to reallocate funding from Structural Funds to member states that comply with country-specific recommendations. Conclusions The OMC has been challenged with regard to living up to its promises. Yet this should not be taken to mean that the OMC is a failure. On the contrary, the OMC in employment has successfully encouraged policy learning, especially at EU level. Yet only limited PART 2: Structural reforms: The way ahead / 45
Page 1: Structural reforms and macro-econom
Page 5: overview Introduction - Reiner Hoff
Page 8 and 9: Structural reforms and macro-econom
Page 10 and 11: Structural reforms and macro-econom
Page 13 and 14: PART 1 Structural reforms: What has
Page 15 and 16: described as an economy that is in
Page 17 and 18: The policy conclusions following fr
Page 19 and 20: 74 72 70 68 66 54 62 60 58 56 54 Bu
Page 21 and 22: Table 4 Main characteristics of lab
Page 23 and 24: employment. However, these programm
Page 25: LABOUR REFORMS IN ITALY 1993-2006 O
Page 29 and 30: PART 2 Structural reforms: The way
Page 31 and 32: % of labour force Almost 16% of you
Page 33 and 34: This observation may have major imp
Page 35 and 36: female. In the ‘better jobs’, t
Page 37 and 38: into new sectors and activities tha
Page 39 and 40: • Marinescu (2006) ‘Strenghteni
Page 41 and 42: pressure on members may result in e
Page 43 and 44: een replaced by Active Labour Marke
Page 45: Lisbon who would be in charge of ca
Page 49 and 50: (2000) Lisbon European Council, Pre
Page 51 and 52: jobs, for both spouses. Notably, th
Page 53: ‘GETTING TRAPPED IN LOW WAGE JOBS
Page 57 and 58: PART 3 Structural reforms and the e
Page 59 and 60: translate into a more dynamic and r
Page 61 and 62: contributes to the implementation o
Page 63 and 64: the progress made by these countrie
Page 65 and 66: endowment (especially the capital s
Page 67 and 68: The decrease in activity of firms a
Page 69 and 70: 6 4 2 0 -2 -4 -6 -8 -8 1970 1975 19
Page 71 and 72: THE STABILITY AND GROWTH PACT: STAB
Page 73 and 74: 3. From 1997 to 2005: the SGP under
Page 75 and 76: 4. How to improve the fiscal framew
Page 77 and 78: the convergence of real interest ra
Page 79 and 80: etween. Notice also that the slowdo
Page 81 and 82: That leaves financial integration a
Page 83 and 84: 16,0 14,0 12,0 10,0 8,0 6,0 4,0 2,0
Page 85 and 86: opposite can arise in Germany - eve
Page 87 and 88: precisely because they benefit from
Page 89 and 90: LABOUR MARKET REFORMS AND MACRO-ECO
Page 91 and 92: observe. After the 1997 election th
Page 93: Acknowledgements The conference and
Page 96:
avec le soutien de la Commission Eu
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