Employment: candidate countries' policy, joint assessment papers

The European Parliament adopted the own-initiative report drawn up by Harald ETTL (PES, Austria) on employment policies in candidate countries. (Please see the document dated 09/07/03.) Parliament made the following points: -those countries in which youth unemployment stands at 20% or more must make special efforts at least to reduce it to the average level of unemployment in the EU in order to prevent neglect and radicalisation; -there should be introduced a selective business location policy in the candidate countries in order to avert the tendency towards impoverishment of the population due to job losses and the associated loss of training and further training establishments; -only a mobility policy based on proper training will make it possible to prevent the creation in an enlarged Europe of regions of emigration, which workers will be forced to leave because there is too little employment; -privatisation must not be allowed to result in the destruction of services of general economic interest; Finally, Parliament stressed the fact that the candidate countries must enable the Roma minority to become increasingly involved in planning, implementing and assessing projects and specific measures to foster their integration.�