Wieliczka, October 22nd, 2005

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The European Social Fund
INTRODUCTION TO THE EUROPEAN SOCIAL FUND

• Wieliczka, October 22nd, 2005
• Markus Handke, European Commission
• DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal
  Opportunities

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Outline
The European Social Fund

• The ESF on the crossroads of the EES and Cohesion
  Policy. Underpinning Lisbon Strategy
• ESF policy fields and eligible activities
• Principles governing structural funds actions
• Management
• State of play in Acceding Countries and Poland
• The Future

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Objectives retained

• - The reinforcement of economic and social
  cohesion is one of the objectives of the Union
  guaranteed by the Treaty (Article 2)
• - Cohesion Policy is the main pillar for
  promoting the harmonious development of the whole
  Community (Article 158 of the Treaty)
• - Article 1 ESF Regulation the Fund shall
  contribute to the actions undertaken in pursuance
  of the EES and the Annual Guidelines on
  Employment

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ESF and Cohesion
The European Social Fund

• Cohesion policy has 3 objectives
• 1 development of regions whose development is
  lagging behind
• 2 Economic and social conversion of areas facing
  structural difficulties
• 3 adaptation and modernisation of policies and
  systems of education, training and employment

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ESF and Cohesion
The European Social Fund

• Objective 1
• Regions whose per capita GDP is less than 75 of
  the Community average
• Co-financing 75 of total eligible cost

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ESF and Cohesion
The European Social Fund

• Objective 2
• Industrial, urban and rural regions
• Co-financing 50 of total eligible cost
• Objective 3
• Co-financing 50 of total eligible cost

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The European Social Fund
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ESF Policy Fields
The European Social Fund

• Article 146 Treaty aim to render the employment
  of workers easier and to increase their
  geographical and occupational mobility within the
  Community, and to facilitate their adaptation to
  industrial changes and to changes in production
  systems, in particular through vocational
  training and retraining

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ESF Policy Fields
The European Social Fund

• Promote active labour market policies to reduce
  unemployment
• Improve access to the labour market, with a
  special emphasis on people threatened by social
  exclusion
• Enhance employment opportunities through lifelong
  education and training programmes
• Promote measures which enable social and economic
  changes to be identified in advance and the
  necessary adaptations to be made
• Promote equal opportunities for men and women

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ESF Eligible Activities
The European Social Fund

• In all 5 policy fields
• mainly assistance to persons (education and
  vocational training, employment aids, social
  economy, etc.)
• assistance to structures and systems (improving
  education structures, developing links between
  work and education, etc.)
• accompanying measures (care services,
  awareness-raising, etc.)

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Principles
The European Social Fund

• Programming
• 7 year cycle
• New Member States start in the middle
• Programming documents
• CFS (Community Support Framework)
• OP (Operational Programmes)
• SPD (Single Programming Documents)
• PC (Programme Complement)

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Principles
The European Social Fund

• Programming CSF (Community Support Framework)
• Basic programming document
• Agreed between MS and Commission
• Identifies main challenges
• Identifies strategy

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Principles
The European Social Fund

• Programming OPs (Operational Programmes)
• Sectoral, multiregional or regional Operational
  Programmes
• Set out in detail plans to implement the
  Community Support Framework
• Set out in detail how and where the funds will be
  spent, the expected impact and how the programmes
  will be monitored and evaluated

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Principles
The European Social Fund

• Programming SPDs (Single Programming Documents)
• Generally used where financing is less than 1
  billion
• CSF and OP in one
• Sets out the strategy priorities, objectives and
  impact of Structural Fund activities and outlines
  how programmes will be managed and monitored

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Principles
The European Social Fund

• Additionality
• For each objective the Member States must
  maintain their public expenditure at the same
  level at least as during the previous programming
  period
• No replacement of national expenditure
• Co-financing

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Principles
The European Social Fund

• Partnership
• close consultation between EC, MS, regional and
  local authorities, economic and social partners,
  etc.
• ESF Committee The role of the ESF committee is
  to give opinions to the Commission on the
  implementation of the Social Fund. The committee,
  which meets four times a year, is made up of two
  government representatives, two trade unions and
  two employer representatives from each EU Member
  State.

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Management
The European Social Fund

• The Commission does not directly fund ESF
  projects. Member States are responsible for
  identifying their priorities for funding and for
  selecting individual projects
• unlike PHARE

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Management
The European Social Fund

• Member State
• Managing authority
• Paying authority
• Monitoring Committee

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Management
The European Social Fund

• Commission
• verifies structures and procedures (transparency
  selection procedures, sound financial management)
• Participation in the monitoring committee

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The European Social Fund
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ESF in the New Member States
The European Social Fund

• Obj. 1 support
• - Obj.1 CSF HU CZ SK PL
• - Obj.1 SPD EE LV LT MT SI
• EQUAL all new MS

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ESF in the New Member States
The European Social Fund

• Financial allocations (all New Member States -
  Mio Euro - 2004-2006)
• Obj. 1 14.957
• Obj. 2 136
• Obj. 3 125
• EQUAL 252

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ESF in the New Member States
The European Social Fund

• ESF share of total structural funds support
  average of 23
• differences between countries from 15 (MT) and
  19.7 (LT) to 31.8 (SI) and 41 (CY)

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Why the need of change

• Increasing pace of economic and social
  restructuring
• due to globalisation, deepening internal market,
  evolution towards knowledge-based society
• importance of increased investment in human
  capital, quality and RD
• key to increase productivity and employment,
  tackle poverty and social exclusion

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Why the need of change

• Demographic change and ageing workforce
• every six years, average age of workforce rises
  by 1 year
• 2030 110 M people over 65 compared to 71 M in
  2000
• problems sustainability of pensions, decline
  volume of employment
• need to increase labour supply (women, older
  workers, immigrants)

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Why the need of change

• Enlargement
• regional and social disparities increased
• unemployment rate 8 in EU15 and 14.8 in NMS
  18 M unemployed in EU25
• widespread poverty in NMS
• The development gap between regions doubles the
  average GDP in Obj 1 is 69 in the NMS 46

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Why the need of change

• Least developed regions
• major part of funds necessary to support
  key-drivers of economic growth
• increase quality of employment, education and
  social inclusion services
• investment in human capital in context of
  restructurings
• investment in administrative capacity

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Why the need of change

• Other parts of the Union
• future challenges not limited to the least
  developed regions
• promote positive management of change to
  facilitate restructurings
• support more inclusive labour market

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The steps

• July 2004 ? Commission adopts the legislative
  proposal
• Dec 2005 ? Decision on the financial
  perspectives
• Mid 2006 ? Decision by Council and European
  Parliament on new regulations
• 1-3 months later ? Strategic guidelines on
  cohesion
• 2005-2006 ? Preparation and negotiation of
  programmes
• 1 Jan 2007 ? Implementation begins

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Principles of the SF reform

• Concentration
• a more strategic approach
• geographic
• thematic
• Simplification
• simpler programming
• more flexible management
• Decentralisation
• stronger role for the regions and local players

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Concentration

• Budgetary resources are concentrated on those
  who need them most (budgetary concentration)
• 78,54 in favour of Convergence
• Less-developed regions
• Less-developed countries
• Regions concerned by the statistical effect
  linked to enlargement (drop in GDP per capita)
• 17,22 in favour of Regional Competitiveness and
  Employment
• 3,94 for cross-border and trans-national
  co-operation
• Programmes will focus on the Lisbon priorities
  (thematic concentration)

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Special treatment

• Regions affected statistically by enlargement
• Outermost regions
• Regions with geographical handicaps
• Certain islands
• Mountain areas
• Sparsely-populated regions in the far North of EU

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(No Transcript)
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ESF priorities Convergence and Regional Comp.
(I)

• Adaptability of workers and enterprises ?
• Development and implementation of lifelong
  learning strategies and systems, dissemination of
  ICT and management skills, promotion of
  entrepreneurship and innovation
• Anticipation and positive management of change
  through work organisation, identification of
  future skill needs and support to workers
  affected by restructuring

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ESF priorities Convergence and Regional Comp.
(II)

• Enhancing access to employment ?
• Modernisation of labour market institutions
• Active and preventive measures ensuring early
  identification of needs
• Participation and progress of women in
  employment, reduce gender segregation, reconcile
  work and private life
• Strengthen social integration and employment of
  migrants

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ESF priorities Convergence and Regional
Comp.(III)

• Reinforcing social inclusion of people at
  disadvantage and combating discrimination ?
• pathways to integration in employment through
  employability measures and accompanying actions
  and social support and care services
• diversity in the work place and awareness raising
  and involvement of local communities and
  enterprises to combat discrimination

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ESF priorities Convergence (I)

• Investment in human capital ?
• reforms in Education and Training systems to
  increase relevance to the LM, update teachers'
  skills
• Increased participation in Education and Training
  systems to reduce early school leaving and
  increase access to initial vocational and
  tertiary education
• Development of human potential in research and
  innovation

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ESF priorities Convergence (II)

• Building of Institutional Capacity of public
  administrations and public services ?
• support to policy and programme design and
  evaluation
• capacity building in the delivery of policies,
  programmes and legislation

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Promotion of good governance and partnership

• ESF shall be implemented at the appropriate
  territorial level according to each MS
  specificities
• Greater involvement of Social Partners and
  consultation of non-governmental stakeholders in
  ESF programming, implementation and monitoring
• Adequate access of NGO to funded activities
• Earmarking of 2 of ESF resources under
  Convergence for capacity building and activities
  undertaken by Social Partners

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For more information, please visit http//europ
a.eu.int/comm/employment_social/ esf2000/index-en.
htm