The Informal Council of European Employment and Social Affairs Ministers, celebrated in Brussels, focused primarily of the place of employment in the new Europe 2020 Strategy for employment and growth.

The President of the European Parliament’s Employment Commission introduced the subject of economic governance by noting that if employment lies at the heart of the Europe 2020 Strategy it should also lay at the centre of the future economic governance.

In her analysis the President stated that this would require two main changes:

1. Accept that while employment undoubtedly constitutes factor of social cohesion, it also constitutes a fundamental factor of competitiveness and of growth. This key growth and competiveness policy element has not however been given the importance that it warrants.
2. These different elements and arguments demonstrate the extent to which employment policies should lie at the heart of macroeconomic and growth policies and by extension at the centre of the new economic governance.

Besides, recommendations relating to the place of employment policies within the framework of economic governance were presented.

All of the ministers agreed that it was vital to place employment at the heart of the Europe 2020 Strategy and its mechanisms of governance by formally integrating the EPSCO Council and adapting its work to schedule of the future “European Semester”. They expressed their hopes that employment recommendations become an integral part of each Member State’s global economic recommendations that will be considered annually within the context of the new “European Semester”.

The ministers discussed the outlines of new strategies to be implemented in order to tackle new challenges linked to employment policies:

1. Demographic change: increasing and reorganising participation in the labour market and anticipating white job creation
2. Policies linked to climate change: green jobs - a major and indispensable driving force for a successful transition to a competitive low carbon economy