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Employment and Social Affairs The Employment Strategy The European Social Fund The Employment Community Initiative (Horizon) The European Social dialogue Health and Safety at Work Social Protection Social Exclusion The Employment strategy The European Council decided to put into effect the relevant provisions of the new Title on Employment in the Treaty of Amsterdam and to implement immediately the co-ordination of Member States’ employment policies, based on common lines of approach and means. These guidelines presented in the Conclusions of the November 1997 Luxembourg Summit centre on four main lines of action: (i) improving employability, (ii) developing entrepreneurship, (iii) encouraging adaptability in businesses and their employees to enable the labour market to react to economic changes, and (iv) strengthening policies on equal opportunities. The Employment Strategy, with its strong bias in favour of prevention and early, active, intervention has a great deal to offer to people who run a high risk of becoming unemployed and, thereafter, remaining unemployed for long periods. People with disabilities are perhaps more likely to fall within this category than any other group in the labour market. There is an explicit reference to the needs of disabled people under pillar 1 "employability" of the 1999 Employment Guidelines. Guideline 9 of package says that the Member States will give special attention to the needs of people with disabilities, ethnic minorities and other disadvantaged groups and develop appropriate forms of preventive and active policies to promote their integration into the labour market. This has direct relevance for the participation of disabled people in the mainstream labour market. Guidelines 1, 2 and 3 underpin the preventive approach of the whole employment strategy, taken together with Guideline 9 they form a mutually-supportive policy-thrust promising to get more people with disabilities into jobs. Guideline 1 seeks to tackle youth unemployment and guarantees that Member States will offer every unemployed young person a new start before reaching six months of unemployment. That new start will come in the form of training, retraining, work experience, a job or some other active measure. And of course this includes young people with disabilities. Guideline 2 is a huge step in preventing long term unemployment. It commits Member States to offering unemployed adults a fresh start before they reach the critical threshold of 12 months of unemployment, i.e. before they become forced to define themselves and be seen as long-term unemployed. Many of those unemployed adults are people with disabilities. Guideline 3 encapsulates the move from passive to active measures. Member States will endeavour to increase (by at least 20%) the proportion of unemployed people benefiting from active measures to improve their employability. This will double the average retraining effort achieved up until now and will bring many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of unemployed people the clear prospect of a return to work. Many of the unemployed people to date that have not been able to get help with employability measures are people with disabilities. To support Member States in establishing their National Action Plans, research is needed to identify good practice in the field of disability and anti-discrimination. Improved frameworks for the collection of data and a policy of systematic evaluation of programmes are also required. Therefore, the Commission is supporting research aiming at producing useful assessments of disability policy or improving the basis for evaluation. This includes a peer review of best practice and work with Eurostat to improve statistics. The information society is recognised as a motor for change in the social and employment fields, ie. there is a social and employment dimension to the Information Society which is increasingly taking over from the earlier more technological emphasis. The IS is also likely to be a more positive and inclusive environment for disabled people to live and work. These aspects have been formalised via the Communication "Next steps" and the more recent "Job opportunities in the IS" report.   The European Social Fund The European Social Fund is the main financial tool through which the EU could translate its disability employment policy aims into action. Currently, it is difficult to identify the overall amount of ESF allocated to people with disabilities as some Member States have a rather "broad" targeting policy for groups with problems in accessing the labour market. Other Member States, however, have adopted "more specific" targeting policies and have earmarked significant ESF support for people with disabilities : i.e., Austria (Obj. 3): 95 MECU, Belgium (Obj. 3): 44 MECU, Germany (Obj. 3): 118 MECU, Greece (Obj.1): 81,5 MECU, Ireland (Obj. 1): 149 MECU, Luxembourg (Obj. 3): 9,94 MECU, Portugal (Obj. 1): 167,3 MECU, Sweden (Obj. 3): ± 40 MECU. To promote labour market integration for people with disabilities most Member States use ESF to support a range of actions including work experience wage subsidies, work experience schemes, temporary sheltered employment and other intermediate labour market steps. Support is also provided for self employment, including the development of co-operatives for the mentally and severely physically disabled (Germany, U.K., Greece). The programming documents show that in many Member States progress has been made in providing packages of integrated measures forming pathways to social and professional integration. There is also evidence of a real effort to decentralise activity and achieve greater co-ordination of services (for example in the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany). Programming documents raise the importance of linking training with labour market needs and recognise the need for both the adaptation of training equipment and facilities and the use of new technologies to improve the quality of training. As part of its strategy to tackle the problem of employment, the Commission also promotes and finances pilot projects under Article 6 of the ESF Regulation. The aim is to test out innovatory ideas and approaches on specific aspects of policy which can be taken on board in the mainstream Structural Fund programmes when they have proved their worth. Selected projects are funded in application of normal ESF rules with regard to cofinancing although theoretically projects can be fully funded. The new  Structural Funds regulations for the forthcoming programme period 2000-2006 will maintain its traditional focus on supporting the integration into the labour market of disadvantaged groups; groups which of course include people with disabilities. While there has been a move away from naming specific ESF target groups (an approach reflected in the Commission’s general policy towards disabled people) it remains essential that people with disabilities should benefit from ESF interventions. There are a number of ways in which this will be possible: The most obvious of the five priority ESF policy fields listed in Article 2 of the draft ESF Regulation is the field of promoting social inclusion and equal opportunities for all in accessing the labour market. This would enable ESF support to be given under any Objective for activities such as upgrading skills and qualification of relevant personnel or the reinforcement and improvement of guidance-counselling services and job agencies; activities which take account of the specific needs of those with disabilities. In addition to these measures, support will also be given to initiatives for the social and professional integration of disadvantaged groups and in particular to measures to improve the analysis and diagnosis of the problems which they face. The first of the ESF policy fields - active labour market policies to combat unemployment and to prevent both women and men from moving into long-term unemployment – is also of particular importance to disabled people due to their more vulnerable labour market status. Disabled people should therefore receive support under this field in addition to other ESF policy fields such as lifelong learning or improving adaptability. Under each of these policy fields there are a variety of specific actions which will be of particular relevance to disabled people. These action include, inter alia, the pathways approach; an approach which encompasses a tailor-made package of training and other support measures for each individual and of which combines the efforts of a wide range of partners (local authorities, social partners, NGOs, etc) to help the most vulnerable into employment. Of similar importance are the accompanying measures which allow support to be given for the provision of services to beneficiaries, including the provision of care services and healthcare where this is part of an overall package of ESF support. Member States will also be encouraged to undertake systematic research when appropriate data is lacking on the number, specific problems, needs and geographical distribution of people with disabilities.   The Employment Community Initiative (Horizon) European Social Fund support is also available through the EMPLOYMENT Community Initiative which helps people who have specific difficulties in finding or keeping a specific job or career. The total budget for the initiative during the period 1994-1999 is almost 3.5 billion ECU, including both EU and Member States contributions. One of the four strands of this Initiative, HORIZON, provides support specifically for people with disabilities; disabilities ranging from physical to mental health impairments or cerebral palsy. A total of 1700 projects have received or are still receiving ESF funding under HORIZON, the aim of which is to develop new ways of tackling the problems which people face in today’s ever changing labour market and to bring about positive changes in training and employment policies and practices. It funds projects which are innovative, have a high degree of local involvement, and are able to show how they can help others to gain from their experience. The impact of these projects is reinforced by grouping them in transnational partnerships so that lessons learned can be taken up throughout the EU. Under the Commission’s proposals for the forthcoming programming period, Article 5 ESF proposes a specific Community Initiative for combating discrimination and inequalities in relation to the labour market (EQUAL). As in the current Employment Community Initiative, this new ESF-funded Community Initiative will continue to have a thematic focus with a number of cross-national thematic working groups each led by a separate Member State focussing on thematic areas reflecting the policy priorities agreed with the Commission. A number of these thematic working groups will be considering issues of importance to disabled people. The EQUAL  Initiative will be based on a number of principles: A comprehensive horizontal approach, which takes account of the multi-dimensional character of inequality and concentrates on the relationship between the excluded and a labour market that needs to become more inclusive. Preventive actions will be an essential part of this approach. The search for alternative, innovative forms of action which add value to other ESF actions undertaken. The identification of best practice and the elaboration of common policies at national and European level, while recognising that innovative solutions to specific problems often spring from the local level. The European Social Dialogue The social partners have produced a Compendium of best practice on the employment of people with disabilities: 36 cases have been  chosen from all the Member States except Greece and Luxembourg. There are initiatives covering the fields of awareness-raising,  recruitment, job retention and training. These initiatives may come from public or private undertakings, trade unions or local authorities in their capacity as employers. Preference has been given to partnership projects (trade unions/employers), but relevant unilateral initiatives from employers and trade unions have also been considered. The Compendium was forwarded by the social partners to the Vienna European Council in December 1998. At the meeting of the Social Dialogue Committee on 19 May, the social partners adopted a Joint Declaration highlighting the following points: promoting equal opportunities for people with disabilities; highlighting the ability, not the disability; promoting the employment of people with disabilities as a positive factor for the undertaking; improving industrial relations by taking account of different forms of disability; diversified approaches for tailor-made solutions; promoting measures outside the workplace (school environment, transport, attitudes and prejudices, etc.). Health and safety at the workplace A good and safe working environment is important for the individual in order to maintain health and working capacity. Every year a significant number of workers that either develop occupational diseases or are involved in the 5 million accidents at work, are forced out of employment either temporarily or permanently. Health and safety policy aims to prevent work accidents and occupational disease and palliate their effects on health. In this way, health and safety measures can contribute to improving productivity and help to improve the economic performance of the enterprise. At the same time, a good and safe working environment is an important competitive factor for the enterprise. The quality of work and its organisation increasingly influences the availability of skilled labour, the motivation of personnel, and the development of human resources in general. The framework directive 89/391/EEC  foresees that the employer should adapt the work to the disabled worker.   Social protection A high level of social protection is a prime concern in providing people with disabilities with the guarantee of a decent life and income. However, an income solution alone is not necessarily enough to enable the fullest possible participation in mainstream society. It is important to consider how to develop social protection so that it can be wholly adapted to, and supportive of, emerging labour market policies and other measures that seek to expand and enhance the opportunities for integration available to people with disabilities. The European debate on social protection has shed more light on the interdependence of the various strands of policy in this area. The importance of these factors is clearly recognised in the Employment Guidelines for 1999 with a call for both real incentives to seek and take up work or training and a critical reassessment of measures inducing workers to leave the labour force early. The Social Protection in Europe report and the MISSOC system also provide a regular analysis on recent disability social protection developments in Member States. A sizeable minority of between one quarter to one third of those aged 70 years or older, experience health problems and require some assistance in carrying out activities of daily living and it is estimated that over 30 % of those aged 80 or older are severely incapacitated. The Commission has undertaken to raise awareness and stimulate a European debate about the challenges that an ageing population will pose for social protection systems in the field of long-term care.   Social exclusion Disability figures inter alia among the factors that cause social exclusion and poverty. This is primarily due to a lack of employment opportunities for people with disabilities whose productive role in society continues to be underestimated. The enhanced commitment to fight against discrimination in the field of employment and invest in preventive active labour market measures will constitute the basic prong to improve social inclusion of people with disabilities. Action to combat social exclusion will also be possible through provision of incentive measures under new Article 137 of the Treaty. Such measures would encourage Member States to invest in conditions of participation and social protection that make it possible for vulnerable people to raise their standard of living and to improve conditions of life.