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AMENDMENT

The guidelines in the Annex shall be taken into account in the employment policies of the Member States, which shall be reported upon in national reform programmes. Member States should design reform programmes consistent with the objectives set out in the ‘ Europe 2020 integrated guidelines’.

The guidelines in the Annex and the national reform programmes shall be implemented in the employment policies of Member States. The employment and social impact of national reform programmes , which must be consistent with the objectives set out in those guidelines , must be carefully monitored .

Article 2a

When designing and implementing their national reform programmes, taking account of the guidelines in the Annex, Member States shall ensure effective governance of employment and social policies. Stakeholders, including those at regional and local level along with those affected by the different aspects of Europe 2020 strategy, parliamentary bodies and social partners shall be closely involved throughout the design and implementation, monitoring and evaluation of those programmes, including in the definition of targets and indicators.

The EU headline targets, as set out in the Annex, shall be followed up with appropriate sub-targets and indicators, including outcome and result indicators, as well as national targets, indicators and scoreboards. Member States shall take those targets and indicators into account, along with the guidelines and any country-specific recommendations addressed to them by the Council.

Member States shall monitor closely the employment and social impact of reforms implemented under respective national reform programmes.

When reporting on the application of the guidelines in the Annex, Member States shall follow the structure to be agreed at Union level and shall include the same elements in order to ensure clarity, transparency and comparability among Member States.

The Member States will set their national targets for increasing the employment rate for women and men to 75 % by 2020, with the aim of reaching full employment, in particular through greater labour market participation of young people, older workers, the low-skilled and people with disabilities, minorities, in particular the Roma, and the better integration of legal migrants. Furthermore, Member States will set their national targets so that the share of 15 to 24 year-old women and men in education, training or employment increases to at least 90 %.

Member States will increase the employment rate by 10 %, focusing on particular groups, by 2014:

The rate of people who are long-term unemployed should be reduced by 10 %.

Member States should integrate the flexicurity principles endorsed by the European Council into their labour market policies and apply them , making full use of European Social Fund support with a view to increasing labour market participation and combating segmentation and inactivity , gender inequality, whilst reducing structural unemployment. Measures to enhance flexibility and security should be both balanced and mutually reinforcing . Member States should therefore introduce a combination of flexible and reliable employment contracts, active labour market policies , effective lifelong learning , policies to promote labour mobility, and adequate social security systems to secure professional transitions accompanied by clear rights and responsibilities for the unemployed to actively seek work .

To reach this goal , Member States should promote growth, thereby creating new decent jobs, increase the innovative potential of the economy , in particular of SMEs , and free industry from administrative and non-tariff barriers . To that end, Member States should also develop regulatory and support instruments that take the diversity of business and workers’ rights into consideration so that all forms of companies have equivalent conditions as regards competition and promotion. In order to improve women’s and young people’s access to the labour market , by taking into account the demographic challenges, conditions should be created for adequate child care facilities, so that every child of pre-school age can be provided with child care outside the family, and every young person is provided with a real job or a place in training or further education within four months of finishing school, in close cooperation with the social partners. The long-term unemployed should receive offers for employability measures for which quantitative goals should be set up to strengthen preventive labour market policies . Therefore, at least 25 % of all long-term unemployed should participate in an active labour market measure in the form of advanced training, education and/or an occupational redeployment.

Member States should step up social dialogue and tackle labour market segmentation with measures addressing temporary and precarious employment, underemployment and undeclared work . Professional mobility should be rewarded . The quality of jobs and employment conditions should be addressed by fighting low-wages and by ensuring adequate social security also for those on fixed contracts and the self-employed . Employment services should be strengthened and open to all, including young people and those threatened by unemployment with personalised services targeting those furthest away from the labour market.

The Member States in cooperation with the social partners should increase the employment rate through activation measures, in particular for young people, low-skilled and people requiring particular protection and/or support, through advisory services and education and professional training adapted to the labour market 's needs. Member States should safeguard and strengthen equal treatment and equal pay for equal work in the same workplace as laid down in Articles 18 and 157 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The job quality should also be addressed by reducing the number of working poor. Furthermore, Member States should increase the employability of legal migrants with appropriate programmes. Continued efforts and innovative programmes are also required to reintegrate people with disabilities into the labour market, including through subsidised jobs. Member States should remove the barriers which make it more difficult for people to enter the labour market for the first time, support the creation of jobs, foster social innovation and increase the quality and effectiveness of job placement services, including public employment services. Job centres must provide training and mentoring programmes particularly in the field of information and communication technologies , as well as access to high-speed internet to job seekers, especially older people, legal migrants, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities, in order to optimally facilitate the job search . Individual and collective forms of self-employment through social economy-type enterprises should be supported in this context . Special measures should be taken against the dominance of women in poorly paid work and the employment of women in management posts more effectively promoted in order to prevent gender-specific segmentation of the labour market. In particular, working time rules should be adjusted so as to allow a work process which conforms to the requirements of the compatibility of family life and work, and allows a more flexible exit from working life into retirement. Member States should take measures to encourage the involvement of fathers in caring for children, and review their tax systems to make them employment-friendly . External and internal flexicurity strategies to increase flexibility, to be able to react more efficiently to production cycles, should be better applied through active labour market policies and adequate social security systems available to workers under all forms of employment , so that changing jobs does not lead to disproportionate financial costs. It must be underlined that flexibility without social security is not a sustainable way of increasing employment. These should be accompanied by a clear commitment to actively support job seeking. New forms of work organisation, such as atypical temporary work, part-time work and teleworking, or mobility of workers must not lead to a reduction in individual and collective labour rights and social protection for the people concerned. It should be ensured that new forms of employment are not created at the expense of regular (full-time, permanent) contracts. Efforts should also be made to combat undeclared employment by means of effective measures to monitor and implement labour rights. Decent work as promoted by the ILO and ‘good work’, as guiding principles, must govern both job creation and labour market integration. In enhancing the functioning and performance of the labour market, Member States should foster social partnership and actively engage social partners in national policy elaboration and should fully respect their right, in accordance with national laws and practices, to conclude and enforce collective agreements .

It is of the utmost importance to create high-quality jobs which are also needed in the longer term and which possess high added value. It is therefore vital that education and employment policies should support changes in economic structure. As a rule, jobs lost during the economic crisis will not be recreated in the same numbers in the same sectors as before. Therefore the education system must respond flexibly to the labour market requirements which accompany a new economic structure. Employment policy must ensure that workers can make as smooth as possible a transition both between sectors of the economy and between different states of the labour market. It is therefore more necessary than in the past to take long-term objectives as a starting point and focus more on coordinated measures in enterprise, education and employment policies.

In order to increase competitiveness and raise participation levels , particularly for the low-skilled, and in line with economic policy guideline 2, Member States should review tax and benefit systems and the capacity of public services to provide the necessary support . Member States should increase labour force participation through policies to promote active ageing, gender equality and equal pay and labour market integration of young people, disabled, legal migrants and other vulnerable groups . Work-life balance policies with the provision of affordable care and innovation in work organisation should be geared to raising employment rates , particularly among youth, older workers and women, in particular to retain highly-skilled women in scientific and technical fields. Member States should also remove barriers to labour market entry for newcomers, support self-employment and job creation in areas including green employment and care and promote social innovation .

In this context, the resources of the European Social Fund should be fully used to increase employability and job quality , with measures to develop personal skills and to fulfil quality requirements in seminal jobs . In order to promote professional mobility, it is necessary for Member States to increase people ’s openness to mobility within the European Union by providing incentives. To achieve this , the rules on obtaining subsidies from the European Social Fund should be examined and where possible simplified . National budgets and the general budget of the EU including the European Social Fund and the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund should be coordinated and geared to preparing the workforce for a sustainable economy. With this aim , Member States should take steps to publicise information on the purpose of these funds and the conditions of use .

Member States shall promote the EU micro-finance facility as an example of how to combine economic and social measures in order to boost economic and employment growth.

National and EU micro-finance facilities shall be accompanied by specific training and mentoring programmes and social benefits schemes ensuring minimum income in the first year after opening of the business in order to make entrepreneurship a real option.

Member States should also promote and invest in social services of general interest including employment, health and housing services which have to be funded sufficiently.

The EU headline target, on the basis of which Member States will set their national targets, is of aiming to bring by 2020 to 75 % the employment rate for women and men aged 20-64 including through the greater participation of youth, older workers and low skilled workers and the better integration of legal migrants.

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Member States will set as their national targets the reduction of the school drop-out rate below 10 % by 2020, whilst increasing the share of the population aged 30-34 having completed tertiary or equivalent education to at least 40 %.

Member States should promote productivity and employability through an adequate supply of knowledge and skills to match current and future demand in the labour market. Quality initial education and attractive vocational training must be complemented with effective incentives for lifelong learning, second-chance opportunities, ensuring every adult the chance to move one step up in their qualification , and by targeted migration and integration policies . Member States should develop systems for recognising acquired competencies, remove barriers to occupational and geographical mobility of workers, promote the acquisition of transversal competences and creativity, and focus their efforts particularly on supporting those with low skills and increasing the employability of older workers, while at the same time enhance the training, skills and experience of highly skilled workers, including researchers .

The provision of high-quality initial education and attractive vocational training helping workers to adjust their skills to the labour market needs are high priorities for Member States . They must be complemented by second-chance opportunities for young people, especially those aged between 25 and 35, which include an obligatory offer of educational and vocational training and effective incentives for lifelong learning, whereby the social partners are called upon to provide the time and also to support financially vocational training. In particular , Member States should reduce the dropout rate to less than 10 % and complete migration and integration policy with facilities for language learning and social studies . Member States should also develop systems for recognising acquired skills and competences.

In cooperation with social partners and business , Member States should improve access to training, strengthen education and career guidance combined with systematic information on new job openings and opportunities, promotion of entrepreneurship and enhanced anticipation of skill needs . Investment in human resource development, up-skilling and participation in lifelong learning schemes should be promoted through joint financial contributions from governments, individuals and employers . To support young people and in particular those not in employment, education or training, Member States in cooperation with the social partners, should enact schemes to help recent graduates find initial employment or further education and training opportunities , including apprenticeships , and intervene rapidly when young people become unemployed . Regular monitoring of the performance of up-skilling and anticipation policies should help identify areas for improvement and increase the responsiveness of education and training systems to labour market needs. EU funds should be fully mobilised by Member States to support these objectives .

In cooperation with the social partners and businesses , Member States should improve access to training, including vocational training, strengthen education and career guidance combined with systematic information on, and appropriate measures to promote, new job openings and opportunities, entrepreneurship , SMEs development and enhance the anticipation of quality requirements . The development of human resources , higher qualifications and training should be financed through joint financial contributions from employers and governments . Access to high-quality general and vocational training and the reintegration of school drop-outs in the education system should be possible for everyone at any time. Member States should align investments in the education system so that the objective of increasing the level of skills among the active population is fulfilled, also taking into account learning in informal and non-formal contexts. In doing so , the reforms regarding employability in particular should be aimed at ensuring , through training or knowledge in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT), the acquisition of the core skills which every employee needs to be successful in a knowledge-based economy. Measures should be taken to ensure that the educational mobility of young people and teachers becomes the norm . Member States should improve the openness and relevance of general and vocational education systems and non-vocational training for all ages, in particular by implementing national qualification frameworks enabling flexible learning pathways and by developing partnerships between general and vocational education institutions and the world of work, including paid apprenticeships, in order to increase considerably the proportion of high-level academic and vocational degrees .

Regular monitoring of the performance of up-skilling and anticipation policies should help to identify areas for improvement and to increase the responsiveness of education and training systems to labour market needs. EU funds should be fully mobilised by Member States to support these objectives.

Guideline 8a:     Strengthening social and economic cohesion policy in support of employment

Member States commit themselves to arranging, complementing, coordinating and adjusting their national targets, at national level and among themselves, in such a way that imbalances in economic development between regions will be reduced.

Member States are aware that cohesion policy represents an effective instrument which supports but is not subordinated to the guidelines, by accommodating regional specificities, supporting regions to overcome their socio-economic difficulties and reducing disparities.

An integrated approach, multi-level governance and partnership principles should be at the core of the governance and delivery of the strategy, while the regional and local levels in particular have to play a crucial role as the vehicles for reaching the countless economic and social actors living and producing in the Union, in particular the SMEs, especially those forming part of the social economy.

Therefore, cohesion policy is not just the source of stable financial allocations, but also a powerful instrument for economic development and so an employment instrument for all Union regions.

Member States should invest more in transport, energy, telecommunication and IT infrastructure and make full use of the European Structural Funds.

The participation of potential beneficiaries in Union co-founded programmes should be encouraged by simplification of delivery systems.

To achieve this, Member States should create synergies between their cohesion policies and other existing sectoral policies, in accordance with an integrated approach, since cohesion is not a cost but gives strength, taps unused potential, reduces structural differences between countries and regions, expands growth and improves the competitiveness of Union regions in a globalised world, counterbalances the effects of the global economic crisis and generates Union social capital.

Guideline 9:     Improving the performance of education and training systems at all levels and increasing participation in tertiary education

In order to ensure access to quality education and training for all and to improve educational outcomes, Member States should invest efficiently in education and training systems notably to raise the skill level of the EU's workforce, allowing it to meet the rapidly changing needs of modern labour markets. Action should cover all sectors (from early childhood education and schools through to higher education, vocational education and training, as well as adult training) taking also into account learning in informal and non-formal contexts. Reforms should aim to ensure the acquisition of the key competencies that every individual needs for success in a knowledge-based economy, notably in terms of employability, further learning, or ICT skills. Steps should be taken to ensure learning mobility of young people and teachers becomes the norm. Member States should improve the openness and relevance of education and training systems, particularly by implementing national qualification frameworks enabling flexible learning pathways and by developing partnerships between the worlds of education/training and work. The teaching profession should be made more attractive. Higher education should become more open to non-traditional learners and participation in tertiary or equivalent education should be increased. With a view to reducing the number of young people not in employment, education, or training, Member States should take all necessary steps to prevent early school leaving.

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The EU headline target, on the basis of which Member States will set their national targets, is to reduce the drop out rate to 10 %, whilst increasing the share of the population aged 30-34 having completed tertiary or equivalent education to at least 40 % in 2020.

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Member States will set their national targets to reduce by 25 % the number of Europeans living below national poverty lines, lifting over 20 million people out of poverty, in particular by employment and education policy measures.

Member States’ efforts to reduce poverty should be aimed at promoting full participation in society and economy and extending employment opportunities, making full use of the European Social Fund. Efforts should also concentrate on ensuring equal opportunities, including through access to affordable, sustainable and high quality services and public services (including online services, in line with guideline 4) and in particular health care . Member States should put in place effective anti-discrimination measures . Equally, to fight social exclusion, empower people and promote labour market participation, social protection systems , lifelong learning and active inclusion policies should be enhanced to create opportunities at different stages of people's lives and shield them from the risk of exclusion. Social security and pension systems must be modernised to ensure that they can be fully deployed to ensure adequate income support and access to healthcare - thus providing social cohesion - whilst at the same time remaining financially sustainable . Benefit systems should focus on ensuring income security during transitions and reducing poverty, in particular among groups most at risk from social exclusion, such as one-parent families, minorities, people with disabilities, children and young people, elderly women and men, legal migrants and the homeless. Member States should also actively promote the social economy and social innovation in support of the most vulnerable.

Combating poverty and exclusion remains a vital challenge. In order to pursue this objective, it is necessary to create opportunities to participate in the labour market or to return to it for all social groups, irrespective of locality or level of education. It is essential to strike a balance between giving people a sufficient sense of security and preserving their motivation to work and earn income. To achieve this target, Member States should make an effort to reduce poverty , including in-work poverty, promote full participation , at people's own choice, in politics, society , the arts and the economy and extend employment opportunities, in respect of which the European Social Fund is to be used . Member States should pay particular attention here to the increasing number of working poor. In order to formulate specific objectives to combat poverty it must be made clear how poverty should be measured. The standard definition that earning 60 % of the median income constitutes poverty must be qualified. Poverty cannot be established by means of such a one-sided indicator. It has to be ensured that equal opportunities, as well as access to affordable, sustainable and high quality services and public services (including online services, in line with guideline 4), in particular in the social, employment, health and housing fields, are preserved, ensuring that they are available also to the vulnerable and weaker population groups . Member States should also ensure that the oral or written information provided by the public services is clear and complete and that, in the event of a refusal to grant an entitlement, a reason should be given, mentioning the possibilities for an appeal by the person concerned . The principle that there may be no discrimination between men and women with the same training and in the same type of employment should be legally binding in Member States for all types of employment relationship. In order to fight social exclusion, empower people to play an active role in society and promote labour market participation, social protection systems and active inclusion policies must be further enhanced to create opportunities and job perspectives, taking into account the various needs and responsibilities at different stages of people’s lives , to shield them from the risk of exclusion and to provide, in particular for those furthest from the labour market, support into quality work . Therefore, efficient approaches under active labour market policy for training and job creation have to be created for those who are excluded from the labour market owing to lack of training. At the same time, social security and pension systems must be modernised so that they can be fully deployed to ensure income above the poverty threshold, to enable participation in social life and access to healthcare, whilst the financial sustainability of these systems must be preserved . Benefit systems should ensure income security during transitions and reduce poverty, in particular among groups most at risk from social exclusion, such as one-parent families, minorities, people with disabilities, children and young people, elderly women and men, legal migrants and the homeless. In particular, Member States shall be committed to tackling child poverty through appropriate measures so that children are not restricted in their personal development and are not underprivileged when entering professional life due to poverty related interferences with their free development. It is particularly important to ensure equal access to education and equal opportunities for children from disadvantaged families, so as to guard against their social exclusion as adults. In order to strengthen income security at various stages of life, Member States should ensure adequate minimum incomes that should at least be above the poverty line, in accordance with the various practices, collective agreements and legislation in Member States. Member States should also actively promote the social economy and social innovations designed to address the different social risks which arise during people’s lifetimes, especially where the most vulnerable are concerned, and effectively implement the adopted anti-discrimination measures . In enhancing the sustainability of public finances, Member States should pay particular attention to the positive effects that improvements in social cohesion have on national budgets. Reduced poverty and enhanced participation lead to reductions in social expenditure and increased tax revenues. Member States should guarantee high minimum standards for job quality so as to eradicate poverty among employed people.

Social protection systems, including pensions and healthcare, should be strengthened and modernised, ensuring their social adequacy, financial sustainability and responsiveness to changing needs, while providing everyone in the European Union with adequate protection from social insecurities, such as health problems, unemployment and poverty.

Social protection of short-term contracts, which affect women in particular, and pregnant women more particularly still, should be improved by Member States.

The EU headline target, on the basis of which Member States will set their national targets, is to reduce by 25 % the number of Europeans living below the national poverty lines, lifting over 20 million people out of poverty.

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