Recommends that the Committee of Ministers invite the governments of member states and the European Community :
16.1 to bear in mind the guiding principle that in employment- as in other spheres- no substantial widespread improvement can be achieved without establishing an overall policy arrived at both domestically and by agreement between states and based on clearly expressed political resolve ;
16.2 to give highest priority and urgency in their economic and social policies to combating unemployment, and to ensure greater convergence between the aims of economic policy and those of employment and labour market policy, particularly as regards, on the one hand, public and private investment in job-creating branches of industry and, on the other, vocational training which should be geared to the aims of industrial restructuring and to the development of branches of industry using the new technologies ;
16.3 to ensure that efforts to secure full employment do not involve measures with secondary effects liable to endanger social achievements, such as the rights of the handicapped, and achievements in the field of migrant workers' rights, the emancipation of women and the provision of social protection for all, even though arrangements of a more dynamic kind may be envisaged with regard to the administration of certain advantages such as unemployment benefit ;
16.4 to implement selective budgetary and fiscal policies conducive to economic growth which creates jobs, and labour market policies designed to help the population of working age to adjust to rapid structural and technical changes in the production system ;
16.5 when publishing each of their major economic, social and industrial plans, particularly those relating to investment in the public sector and aid to sectors in difficulty, to issue also a quantified estimate of their impact on employment and, to that end, pool their employment analysis and research efforts in order to improve employment forecasting machinery and methods for analysing the cost/effectiveness of employment policies ;
16.6 to embark, while taking care to preserve economic balance, upon a policy of public investment, particularly with a view to creating employment of benefit tc the community, especially in favour of long-term and young unemployed, and of incentives (financial, fiscal, risk guarantees, etc.) to private investment in sectors which offer prospects for the creation of wealth or more flexible structures or cost cutting, taking due account of the possibilities offered by local and regional initiative in this context, especially through the creation of jobs aimed at improving the quality of life, such as those concerned with environment protection, social service and energy saving ;
16.7 to examine the possibility of facilitating the creation of co-operatives, a type of firm which, in spite of its advantages, is often unappreciated by the public and in certain member countries is not accorded the same borrowing facilities as other firms by financial circles ;
16.8 to be guided, in their policy towards small and medium-sized businesses, whose capacity for adjustment to technological change and for job creation must be given further support, by the proposals detailed in its
Resolution 798 (1983) on "1983, European Year of small and medium-sized enterprises and craft trades", which, among other things, urged the governments of member states "to make a special effort to eliminate administrative and technical barriers to trade which place SMEs at a particular disadvantage" and to improve the conditions for the creation and operation of SMEs, particularly by abolishing "excessive paperwork and red tape" ;
16.9 to implement the proposals contained in CLRAE
Resolution 145 (1983) "to reinforce and extend, where it is still necessary, the powers of local authorities to enable them to overcome the problems facing them on account of unemployment, in respect of the unemployed and of firms requiring aid", and to provide them with the necessary resources ;
16.10 to improve the machinery for social dialogue among all the participants and decision-makers in the economy and society at international and national level and within local employment areas, industrial sectors and firms, in order to achieve :
a the implementation of new arrangements capable of improving the employment situation, such as the reduction and reorganisation of working hours including part-time work and flexible retirement, it being understood that these arrangements ought to be considered as measures to stabilise employment in a given economic context, hence subject to alterations ;
b a fairer distribution of opportunities for work, for example through a concerted reduction of global working time offset by a system of recruitment, possibly subsidised, favouring the hardest-hit categories of the population, particularly the long-term adult unemployed and young people below the age of 25 ;
c a reorganisation of working time within firms without jeopardising firms' profitability or the financial equilibrium of social security systems, but by a more effective utilisation of equipment, for example ;
16.11 to establish adequate programmes of vocational training and practical courses to be attended in principle by every unemployed person receiving benefit, in order to make the period of unemployment a period of activity and to restrict the opportunities for undeclared work, that training being oriented if possible towards the new technologies ;
16.12 to encourage better contacts between school, university and the business world in their education policies so as to prepare young people more effectively for working life, in respect both of skills and of the range of potential careers, and to involve trade unions and employers' organisations in that endeavour ;
16.13 to make greater use of the Council of Europe both in improving co-operation among the European countries, the other industrialised countries and the developing countries in order to avoid the situation of certain states or groups of states attempting to solve their own problems at the expense of other countries, particularly those of the Third World, and in reactivating co-operation between the countries of Northern and Southern Europe for the purpose of solving the problems facing migrant workers :
a by intensifying co-operation in the social and legal fields, in particular by the signature and ratification of the European Convention on the Legal Status of Migrant Workers by those states which have not yet done so ;
b by extending the possibilities of intervention by the Resettlement Fund, so as to enable it to finance more job-creating projects in those European regions most affected by the economic crisis, particularly in the countries of origin of migrant workers ;
c by increasing the Fund's capacity to grant loans at advantageous rates of interest which, at present, account for only a small proportion of all loans, most of which are made at market rates ;
d by increasing the means of the existing programmes of vocational training grants for training and further training of instructors from the least developed member countries ;
16.14 to promote economic co-operation and trade with the developing countries in accordance with the proposals contained in Assembly
Resolution 796 (1983), on developments in international trading, and to steer their official development aid towards job-creating projects in order to improve the employment situation in the developing countries and thus curb the influx of migrant workers from those countries ;
16.15 to co-ordinate their efforts to get international financial bodies, in particular IMF, to show more flexibility in their attitude towards the debts of the developing countries ;
