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THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION HAS BEEN gratified when the social partners, at European level the ETUC and UNICE, have come to an agreement between themselves which has subsequently become legislation. This worked very well on subjects such as part time and fixed term workers. Now it seems that they have tried too hard to involve them in solving a more difficult issue. Restructuring, involving problems of redundancy when a company relocates or is taken over, and European Works Councils (EWCs), which can provide a dialogue between employer and union to ease the change, are seen as intertwined by the Commission. Employment Commissioner Vladimir Špidla wants the two sides to come up with ideas on how their guidelines on these topics can be 'implemented in concrete terms'.
However neither organisation appeared to be answering the call. The European Trade Union Confederation regard the two subjects as separate and has long called for a reform of the law on EWCs to come from the Commission It also points to the difficulty in negotiating with the employers as the reason why they have not gone beyond the 'guidelines'. It wants any further discussion to be on the basis of a proposal by the Commission and 'It is clear É that no legislative proposal will be presented on either topic'. For its part the European employers' organisation UNICE, anxious not to depart from voluntarism, regard the Commission's consultation as 'neither desirable nor necessary'. While willing to keep talking to the ETUC they are determined 'best practice tools must not be seized upon by the Commission in order to prepare further legislation on these subjects'.
So where do we go from here? The ETUC can see no possibility of the Commission coming up with anything concrete before mid-2006 when a project on restructuring in the new Member States reports. UNICE also points this out and states that analysis of individual instances of restructuring will continue with the union side. But if the EU wants to go further it seems that it must do so on its own.
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ONE OF THE KEY INDICATORS IN THE EU's drive to become the 'most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world' under the process agreed at Lisbon in 2000 was the amount spent on research. Recently European Commissioner for Science and Research, Janez Potocnik, presented figures which showed that little progress had been made. Faced with a target of spending 3% of GDP on research by 2010, the first 3 years of the process showed average annual growth of 0.7%. However from 2003 to 2005 growth slowed to 0.2%; at this rate the target will be missed by a wide margin as only 2.2% will be achieved by 2010. There was even worse news when comparisons were made with competing countries, The USA and Japan invest 2.76% and 3.12% respectively while China will hit the 2.2% mark at the same time as Europe if it continues to increase its |
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spending by 10% per year as at present. There are three sources of research spending in Europe, the EU Commission, national governments and private business. In 2002, business financed 55.6% of domestic expenditure in the EU, compared to 63.1% in the US and 73.9% in Japan, and this percentage is actually declining and so is unlikely to meet its Lisbon target of 67%. While public spending has increased somewhat the Commission's plans to invest €73 billion in research and development over the next 7 years look likely to be cut by the current wranglings over the overall EU budget In the words of Mr. Potocnik 'We must heed this wake-up call. If the current trends continue, Europe will lose the opportunity to become a leading global knowledge-based economy'. |
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Commissioner Potocnik |
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