Tag: Employment Council

Ten years after the European Employment Strategy was launched, the Portuguese EU Presidency has declared jobs and social issues as its top priorities, as ministers gather for an informal summit in Guimarães.

At their 19-20 January 2006 informal summit, employment and social affairs ministers debated the benefits of the Nordic model of flexicurity, which brings together flexibility of the labour force with a high degree of social security.

On 24 April 2003, the Convention Praesidium proposed that the enlarged Union should have a President of the European Council and a Foreign Minister. Other proposals for a new institutional architecture of the EU include downsizing the Commission to 15 members, setting up a Congress of national and EU parliamentarians, making the number of members of parliament more proportional to the size of countries' populations and changing the qualified majority voting system so that such a majority shall consist of the majority of Member States, representing at least 60 percent of the Union's population.

During its meeting on 5 May, the Education Council will debate the future of youth activities in the EU and adopt a Declaration on the social value of sport for young people.

The question of "Who leads the European Union?" could not be more topical on the eve of the EU's grand enlargement.

Britain and France have proposed the creation of a new post of president of the European Council who would represent the EU and would be the driving force of European integration.

President of the European Convention, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, stated that he would like the EU to adopt its Constitution in 2003.

In the context of the debate on EU reform, the EU's six-month rotating presidency has been facing increased criticism from all sides and could well be abolished in the future. Recently Peter Hain, the UK's Minister for Europe, and José Maria Aznar, the Spanish Prime minister and current EU President, both expressed their support for the abolition of the rotation.

The Court of Justice decided to uphold the judgment of the Court of First Instance annulling the Council's decision to refuse Ms Heidi Hautala, an MEP, access to a report on arms exports. The Court of Justice pointed out that the public must have the widest possible access to documents and agreed with the judgement of the Court of First Instance, which said that the Council should consider partial access to a document containing items of information whose disclosure would endanger EU interests.

While the debate on the future of Europe had been announced as one of the main points to be discussed at the Ghent informal Council on 19 October, it was largely relegated to the margins by the issues of EU anti-terrorism measures and the US action in Afghanistan.

The European Environmental Bureau assessed that Commission's plan for the limitation of access to EU documents is "a shocking contrast with the Amsterdam Treaty's promise of more openness in Community decisionmaking".

Turkey embarked on its process of adhesion to the European Union with the formal launch of the pre-accession phase at the 39th session of the EU-Turkey Association Council at foreign ministers level in Luxembourg on 11 April 2000.