Cristina asks for ‘flexibility’ in EU 2020 employment targets

Education, Employment and Family Minister Dolores Cristina has appealed to the EU to show more flexibility over employment targets designed by individual member states for 2020. She added that the recent calls by the European Commission for member states to boost their targets were not helpful.

Addressing the EU’s Employment Council earlier on this week in Brussels, Ms Cristina said that Malta is against a one-size-fits-all policy as individual member states are departing from different positions and have different social and economic realities.

A few months ago the EU unveiled a set of targets to be reached by 2020 in order to continue to boost the EU’s economy, a 75 per cent employment rate by 2020. Member states were asked to set individual national targets through a National Reform Programme and devise policies to reach these goals.

In its draft set of targets, still to be finalised, Malta said that it will be aiming to reach an employment rate target of 63 per cent by the end of the decade, up from the current 59 per cent. Malta currently has the lowest rate of employment in the EU particularly due to the low level of female employment.

Addressing her colleagues in Brussels, Ms Cristina made it clear that national targets should be respected even if they are lower that the common EU goals as member states have different realities.

“Claims that member states targets are not enough to reach the EU targets and that member states should set more ambitious targets ignore the different situations in member states and their different departing points,” she said.

“Extending national targets beyond what is realistic will be counter-productive,” she insisted.

Ms Cristina also emphasised the need for the EU to monitor its member states’ progress towards these targets on an individual basis. She said that it is useless to monitor the EU’s progress as a whole, as progress cannot be the same across the 27 member states.

Apart from employment rates, the EU also asked its member states to set targets in a number of other areas, including education, social policy and energy.

The Commission is expected to issue an assessment on the individual targets set by member states later on this year.