Mr/Mme Chair,
I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union. The Candidate Countries Turkey, Croatia* and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia* , the Countries of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidates Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, and the EFTA country Norway, member of the European Economic Area, as well as Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, and Armenia align themselves with this declaration.
The EU thanks the Office for the paper in front of us, presenting a useful inventory of the support expressed for the Global Jobs Pact at a number of key international meetings since its adoption by ILC in June, as well as the engagement of the Office with the international system to give effect to the pact. It is thereby particularly worth noting the endorsement by the UN system of the global jobs pact – through the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, other UN agencies and the UN system Chief Executives Board for coordination – linking the ILO work to the joint efforts to promote sustainable development and to mainstream the decent work agenda and its implementation worldwide. In our view this wide recognition of the Global Jobs Pact is a confirmation of the importance of the ILO’s capacity in times of crises and of the international consensus that employment is a key route out of the economic crisis. The visibility of the ILO has increased, as have indeed the expectations.
We note with particular satisfaction that the ILO has successfully contributed to the outcome of the Pittsburgh G20 Summit. The central message of the Global Jobs Pact – to put social protection and employment at the core of recovery policies – has gained strong support by the G20 Leaders as well as by the international community as a whole. This message echoes the EU-statement made at the informal meeting in Brussels on 17 September to prepare for the Pittsburgh G20 Meeting.
The EU welcomes the strong signal from the G20 Leaders that international institutions should consider ILO standards and the goals of the Global Jobs Pact in their crisis analysis and post-crisis analysis as well as in their policy-making activities. The EU has often highlighted the need for international organizations to act in a coordinated manner to advance decent work and the social dimension of globalization. We urge the international financial institutions to take these recommendations to heart and strengthen their cooperation with the ILO, e.g. on issues like methodology, data and statistics of importance to labour market analysis.
Previous crises have shown that serious economic and social challenges cannot be tackled at national level alone. The need for joint coherent actions and international coordination at the highest level to shape a fair and sustainable globalization is a central message in the Global Jobs Pact. This message has also been reiterated by several international fora.
As is underlined by the G20 Leaders, sustainable policy responses should be upheld until a durable recovery is secured. In the long run the largest threat is long-term underemployment, unemployment, exclusion and poverty. From previous experience we have learnt that the adverse impacts of long term unemployment and labour market exclusion can run deep, affecting the families of workers; in certain cases even leading to deterioration in children’s health and education, which will be affecting their future employment possibilities and chances.
Madame Chair, the EU is convinced that the main challenge is to prevent a development towards a high and persistent level of unemployment. When addressing this challenge the focus must be on preparing the workforce for change, by inter alia access to skills development and training and education or other activation strategies. The employers should also be encouraged to offer these measures so that their workforce is better prepared for new challenges. In this sense, the crisis presents not only challenges, but also opportunities. We therefore welcome the constructive G20 initiative to call on the ILO, in collaboration with other organisations to develop an employment-based training strategy. We would like to see information on how the office is following up on the elaboration of this training strategy. The ILO International Training Centre in Turin has a key role to play in this regard.
The EU wants to underline that, even though immediate actions should be in the focus, ILO actions and national recovery plans must be coherent with long-term sustainable strategies. In addition, the design of the strategies needs to take into account the specific circumstances of each individual state. Crisis responses measures should be developed in collaboration with the social partners and other stakeholders.
Furthermore, the European Union believes that coherence is achieved when all relevant actors are working towards the same goal, within their respective areas of expertise. Conceived this way, coherence is also about division of labour. The global recession has led to extensive re-evaluation of policies, as well as intensive work to respond to the crisis, not only within the ILO, but also in the G20, the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, among others. It is encouraging that the analyses arrived at in different fora are largely similar.
To effectively build on this convergence, trust, compromise and significant effort are required from all actors. Policies formulated in international organisations and those implemented in the field need to be complementary rather than competing, or even contradictory. In the final paragraph of the paper, the Office sets out the important task of promoting effective policies to other relevant organisations. We expect the Office to go well beyond this, to achieve productive collaboration with other organisations who possess valuable complementary knowledge and resources.
Madame Chair, the international support for the Global Jobs Pact has to be converted into policy implementation in Member states, as is stated in para. 26 of the document. To this end we have noted with satisfaction both from the ILO Report “Protecting people, promoting jobs” and from the discussion in the ESP on the Global Jobs Pact last week, that there seems to be a considerable amount of convergence and commitment among member countries on what needs to be done to counter the recession and build a more sustainable framework in its wake. We were informed of extensive measures put in place, such as health and social insurance schemes, unemployment support and education and training efforts to facilitate the transition of labour force to new and better jobs. The crisis responses of constituents and international organisations demonstrate considerable momentum for the values the ILO promotes. The best way for the ILO to promote these values is to continue reinforcing its work of evidence-based support to its constituents. The more thorough and reliable analysis the ILO can produce and impact it has, the more credibility it will receive from ILO constituents as well as other international actors. The EU is therefore very encouraged by the Office initiative to strengthen its internal capacity to give effect to the Global Jobs Pact. When decision-makers ask themselves how to ensure that employment growth accompanies economic growth and how to safeguard the social dimension of the recovery – an obvious and natural choice should be to consult the ILO.
Finally, our point of departure should be that the crisis might create new possibilities for investments and the shaping of a more sustainable economy. Governments, employers and workers should see the crisis as an opportunity to develop the skills of the labour force and better prepare for long-term demographic challenges, re-emerging stronger and more productive from the crisis. We are confident that the Global Jobs Pact will continue to provide constructive guidance on how to successfully combine social progress and economic growth.
Thank you, Chair
_______* Croatia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process."