New proposals for the European employment strategy

Unexpectedly, the European Parliament rejected, by 224 votes for, 231 against and 72 abstentions, the own-initiative report from Mr. Thomas MANN (PPE-DE, D) on new proposals in favour of a European Employment Strategy and a social policy within the European Union. This report formulated proposals for changes of the European Employment, so that the Spring European Council can take account of them. It asked, in particular, the Commission to concentrate the guidelines on key points and invited the Commission and the Member States to introduce uniform evaluation methods. The result of the vote on the amendments did not satisfy expectations of the PES Group, in particular with regard to SME and the reduction of the tax charter. This is why, the PES recommended to its members to abstain at the time of the final vote. Some members of the EPP also voted against for other reasons, in particular the contents of the report as regards social dialogue, which explains why the final text was finally rejected.�