Employment: guidelines for Member states' policies for the year 2001

The Commission considers favourably several of the comments and suggestions made by the European Parliament on the basis of the Commission's proposal. Therefore, the Commission has included in this amended proposal a number of changes reflecting the EP major concerns with the employment guidelines. Modifications relate in particular to: - the need to comply with the prevention strategy by 2002 and the role of the Public Employment Services; - the need to offer gradual retirement to older workers; - the need to increase per-capita investment in human resources and to improve the effectiveness of apprenticeship as well as of in-work-training; - parterships involving all institutional and social local actors; - recognising the importance of agreements negotiated by the social partners; - ensuring a gender breakdown of employment statistics; - the need to substantially reduce the gender gaps in employment and unemployment; - benchmarking performance in the provisions of child care facilities. The Commission has also considered a number of changes in the recitals, reflecting in particular: - the need for increased consistency between budgetary policies, on the one hand, and strategies and priorities laid down by the employment guidelines, on the other; - the role that the Community Initiative EQUAL and the European Investment Bank can play in support of the European Employment Strategy; - the need for stepping up informed participation by citizens; - the importance of indicators for assessing progress in the implmentation of the Employment Guidelines. This amended proposal will be submitted to the Council. The debate on the employment guidelines for 2001 is on the agenda of the Employment and Social Policy Council of 27 November 2000, with the aim of reaching agreement on a text to be submitted to the Nice European Council of 7/8 December. �