Note to Emco

Brussels, 5th May 2008

EMPL/D/XPM/DD D(2008) 9668

NOTE TO EMCO

Mission for Flexicurity

Presentation of the Five Country Visits

The Mission for Flexicurity was placed under the responsibility of the Commission at the request of the Council in its Conclusions of December 2007. Its main goal is to assist Member States in promoting the visibility and the ownership of the common principles at the national level, and to facilitate the integration of flexicurity in the Lisbon Strategy.

The principal contribution of the European Mission for Flexicurity will consist in the drafting of a report for the Employment and Social Policy Council of December 2008 highlighting the various policy approaches in the Member States. As the visits will have to take place essentially between May and July, they will focus on a limited number of issues and countries. In line with the agreed Terms of Reference of the Mission, and further to the call for volunteer Member States made in the EPSCO informal Council and inEMCO, the Mission will undertake five country visits: France, Sweden, Finland, Poland and Spain.

As part of a mutual learning perspective and in order to involve more countries in the work of the Mission, these visits will also give the opportunity to other Member States, as well as to other relevant participants, to take part in the discussion. As you will see below, while the morning sessions will usually be bilateral, and thus limited to the Members of the Mission, the afternoon sessions instead will be open to Member States and other stakeholders. Those EMCO members who wish to join the Mission are invited to participate in one or two of the visits. To allow a reasonable number of Member States to attend each visit, EMCO members are invited to participate toone ortwo visits. To do so, EMCO Members should communicate their choice of the one or two countries where visits are taking place and the name and contact details of their representative to David-Pascal DION () by the 9th of May.

The objective of this note is therefore to communicate to EMCO members an indicative schedule of the visits and the programmes of the visits already available. This timetable will also be presented on the Commission'sFlexicurity webpage.

·  Visit to France: 19th of May

·  Visit to Sweden: 2nd of June

·  Visit to Finland: 6th of June

·  Visit to Poland: 23rd of June

·  Visit to Spain: Date to be confirmed

A presentation of the Mission visits follows:

·  Visit to France (19th of May 2008) - See the attached draft programme

After a discussion with the Labour Minister, the programme will start with two meetings focused on French currents issues: one on the in-house formation, a crucial topic according to the national negotiation round scheduled in 2008, and another on the reform of the French civil service employment policy. The morning session will be followed by a lunch offered by the Minister of Labour, welcoming the social partners who have negotiated the national agreement on the Labour market modernisation, signed on the 11th of January.

The afternoon session will consist in a discussion on flexicurity in France with the participation of judges, social law professors and human resources directors. Eventually, the seminar will end with a meeting of the Social Dialogue Committee on European and international affairs, including the participation of relevant ministers, social partners and some MPs.

·  Visit to Sweden (2nd of June 2008)

There will be a restricted session in the Morning for the Mission members, the Minister for Employment, the State Secretary for Employment and senior officials. The morning session will be followed by a working lunch where the member of the Mission will meet high-level representatives from the Swedish social partners.

The afternoon session will consist of an open seminar organized by the Swedish Ministry of Employment on "Flexicurity from a Swedish Perspective". The Seminar will be held in Stockholm at the Rosenbad Conference Center from 14.30 to 17.00. The exact content of the seminar is subject to modifications and the final programme for the seminar will be available at the end of April. The working languages will be Swedish, English and French.

The seminar will be organized in two sessions. In session one, the Swedish Minister for Employment will give his view on the balance between flexibility and security in the Swedish labour market and on how Sweden handles adjustment. The delegation for the Mission for Flexicurity will also be invited to present themselves and their Mission. Session two will be devoted to a high-level panel discussion on flexicurity in Sweden. How Sweden deals with adjustment, the role of the social partners and what Sweden has to learn from other labour markets are issues that are envisaged for the panel discussion.

·  Visit to Finland (6th of June 2008)

The programme will start with a political discussion with the Minister of Labour as head of the Finnish delegation. The morning session will be followed by a lunch offered by the Minister of Labour.

The afternoon session will consist of an open seminar on "Finnish responses to the European flexicurity principles" with the participation of relevant ministries, social partners, MEPs, regional and local labour administration representatives and NGOs. The working languages will be English and French.

The main topic of the discussions will be the preparation of the Finnish national flexicurity model, whose aim is to ensure the effective functioning of the Finnish labour market in the future. The emphasis will be in finding new actions to promote job-to-job mobility, to give access to a job to all groups in the labour market (including the hard-to-employ such as young people, immigrants, disabled etc.), to improve quality at work and to make work pay.

An essential part of the Finnish flexicurity model is to make a Flexicurity Pact between Government and the Social Partners. Another related topic will be how to better manage restructuring at the local and regional level and how to find new actions in order to promote anticipation of new skills and labour market needs and to manage change with a close co-operation between all relevant actors at regional and local level.

·  Visit to Poland (23rd of June 2008)

There will be a restricted session in the morning for the Mission members, the Minister of Employment and Social Policy, senior officials and the experts from the Ministry.

The afternoon session will consist of an open seminar organized by the Polish Ministry of Employment and Social Policy on “Flexicurity and active employment policy in Poland”. The Seminar will be held in Warsaw from 11.30 to 17.45. The exact content of the seminar is subject to modifications and the final programme for the seminar will be available soon. The working languages will be Polish, English and French.

The seminar will be organized in the introduction (popularization of flexicurity model, including the common principles, exchange of experience) and three sessions: "Effective active employment policies, particularly taking into consideration employment of older workers", "Migration of Polish workers - measures to take for the return of Polish workers" and "Lifelong learning, including skills gap". During each session, the participants (Ministers, Mission members, social partners, and NGOs' representatives) will be invited to give their view on the subjects.

·  Visit to Spain (? 2008)

To be filled in once the contribution from Spain will have been received

***

While the Commission is aware that the limited number of country visits will not allow the Mission to get an exhaustive overview of the 27 approaches to flexicurity, the Commission wants to stress that there will be other instances over the year for further promoting the visibility and ownership of the agreed common principles at Member States' level. These events could also, where relevant, feed into the report of the Mission.

Firstly, in the frame of the Lisbon Strategy, Lisbon missions will be organised in each Member State before the summer break in view of the preparation of the progress reports. During these missions, national flexicurity approaches will be discussed at length.

Secondly, in the frame of the Mutual Learning Programme, the Thematic Review Seminar that will take place on 24. September will be devoted to a first presentation of the Mission preliminary results and will also offer opportunities to several Member States to present their national practices.

Thirdly, in the frame of the calls for proposals on flexicurity, to be launched within the coming weeks, Member States will have the opportunity to apply for grants in order to launch projects and organise activities to encourage the development and implementation of their national flexicurity pathways.

These various opportunities will allow Member States and other relevant stakeholders to remain systematically involved in the flexicurity debate and in the work of the Mission for Flexicurity.

Xavier Prats Monné

(Signed)

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