European Community is published on behalf of the Commission of the European Communities. Into the eighties pages3-6 Office: 20 Kensington Peggy Crane recalls Community Palace Gardens, London W8 4QQ Tel (01) 727 8090 achievements in 1979 and singles out challenges for the Cardiff Office: 4 Cathedral Road, Cardiff CF! 9SG Tel. (0222) 371631 Sun Power pages 7-8 Solar energy could provide a lifeline Edinburgh Office: 7 Alva Streel , Edinburgh EH2 4PH for developing countries Tel. (031) 225 2058

lnlended to give a concise view of Reforming the Commission pages 9-11 current Communily affairs and The Spierenbourg report stimulate discussion on European recommends streamlining before problems, it does nol necessarily reflecl 1he opinions of the new member states arrive Communily institulions or of its edi1or. Unsigned articles may be Jobs pages 12-13 quoted or reprinted withou[ Work-sharing and sandwich payment if their source is acknowledged. Righls in signed courses both help reduce articles should be negotiated with unemployment I heir au I hors. In either case, the edi1or would be glad to receive the In theswim pages l4-15 publication. The Community helps clean up Printed by Edwin Snetl printers, British beaches Yeovil England European Community also appears in lhe following edit ions: Ru naway CAP page 16 Community Report, 29 Merrion Principles of the agricultural policy Square, Dublin 2, Ireland Tel. 760353 still right but costs must be European Community, 2100 M controlled Street, NW, Suite 707, Washington DC 20037, USA Tel. 202 8629500 30 lours d'Europe, 61 rue des Belles Feuilles, 75782 Paris Cedex 16, France. Tel. 501 58 85 The mailing lists for 'European Comunita Europea, Via Poli 29 , Community' are now being updated. 00187 Rome, Italy Subscribers have recently been sent a two­ Tel. 678 97 22 Europa Gammel Torv 4, page questionnaire which we hope they Post Box 144, 1004 Copenhagen K, will complete and return in the pre-paid Denmark . Tel. 14 41 40/ 14 55 32 EGMagatin envelope as quickly as possible so that Zitelmannstrasse 22, their name and address and particular 5300 Bonn, W. Germany areas of interest can be included on the Tel. 23 8041 Comunidad Europea, 200 rue de la new computer based mailing lists, which Loi, 1049 Brussels, Belgium will be prepared as soon as all replies have Tel. 35 00 40 Europaiki Koinotis, 2 Vassilissis Sofias, been received and will supersede our T.K. 1602, Athens 134, Greece existing lists. This should help us to Tel. 743 982/3/ 4 provide a more thorough and efficient A vrupa Toplulugu, 13 Bogaz Sokak Kavaldidere, Ankara, Turkey service. Tel. 27 61 4576

2 European Community January / Peggy Crane recalls Community achievements in 1979 and singles out challenges for the 1980s

As the new decade progresses, the affect all Community countries and generation that knew the inter-war years cannot be solved in isolation. To cope of the twenties and thirties and the Second more effectively with the crisis that World War will fade from the centres of threatens, a Community approach has political power, to be replaced by those much to offer. with no sense of the fear, drama and While Britain is not alone in the change those years involved. They cannot Community in defending what she sees as see the European Community as its vital national interests, a more founders saw it. They have no guilt for the communautaire approach by all the past. partners in the 1980s could produce In the eighties, the Community will results of benefit to all Community have to merit its own existence without, citizens. on the whole, the enthusiastic impulses that drove it into being. The next ten 1979 - not a bad year years, therefore, are a crucial time for the Despite disappointing average economic development of the Community. If it performance, 1979 was a year of survives them strengthened and even considerable achievement, providing the moderately successful, there will be no basis of Community activity for much of turning back. the eighties. Although several of the For many British people the European major innovations were the result of long Community exists only in terms of the UK gestation, their satisfactory conclusion is contribution to its budget. The danger for part of the record. the UK is that concern over this one issue • The launching of the European will totally blind the nation not only to the Monetary System (EMS): While the responsibilities of membership of the principles governing EMS were adopted in Community, but to any realistic 1978, the scheme did not start properly appreciation of what the Community until . It is designed to stands for or could achieve. stabilise member currencies within fixed The budget row has already limits; to establish the European Currency overshadowed the positive gains Unit (ECU), representing the same basket engineered by the Community in 1979, of currency units as the European Unit of and ignores the problems ahead, notably Account (EUA), as the numeraire in the possible consequences of unrest in the exchange rates; and to create a European Middle East and its effect on energy Monetary Fund within two years. Britain supplies. North Sea oil cannot save is not yet a member of the EMS (although Britain if the rest of the Community is in a it takes part in the scheme's partial state of economic collapse. Even without pooling of gold and currency reserves), such an international crisis, slow but in the first six months of operation the economic growth, high unemployment EMS behaved remarkably like the zone of and the threat to traditional industries monetary stability that it was set up to be.

European Communily January/February 1980 3 The only currency that showed marked the earlier preferential treatment for ACP signs of fluctuation was sterling! At its agricultural products in the Community meeting in Dublin in the market, and extends the principles of the European Council stressed the need to stabilisation of export earnings scheme improve co-ordination of the economic (STABEX) to include certain minerals. and mapetary policies of member The Community will contribute about countries, and confirmed the intention to 6,000 million EUA (£3, 700m) to the go ahead with the European Monetary financing of the new Convention through Fund. the European Development Fund. • The Tokyo Round (GATT): The • Elections to the European Parliament: Council of Ministers has approved the The first elections to the Parliament were results of the Multilateral Trade held throughout the Community on 7-10 Negotiations (MTN) concluded under the June. The 410 MEPs are already Tokyo Round of the General Agreement beginning to exercise their political muscle on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The new in relation to the other Community agreements took effect on 1 January 1980. institutions, notably by rejecting the EEC Except for safeguard mechanisms, wheat budget for 1980! This means that the and coarse grains, the MTN largely complex budgetary procedure has to start achieved the objectives which the again and meanwhile the Community has Community (with the Commission acting to live from month-to-month on the basis on behalf of the Nine) had set itself at the of last year's budget. beginning of the negotiations. Without • Energy: Oil is now a major that united clout the results would have preoccupation of the Western been less satisfactory. industrialised world. Both at the The major achievement, agreement by European Council in Strasbourg on June the USA, Japan and the Community to 22-23 and at the World Economic Summit reduce tariffs by about one-third over the on June 28-29 oil headed the agenda. At next eight years, should encourage trade both meetings, Heads of Government took and give the Community wider access to important decisions to ensure more its competitors' markets, while the moderate and rational use of oil, and adoption of a series of codes and legal confirmed that there should be target texts on customs valuation, anti-dumping, limits on oil imports between 1980 and subsidies and compensating duties, 1985. The Community target was to hold licensing procedures and so on, should imports during this period to a yearly level contribute to more orderly trade in the equal to or less than the 472 million 1980s and provide a check to the tonnes imported in 1978. At the beginning protectionist reflexes which could of December, the Council of Ministers otherwise be unleashed on world trade. agreed the ceilings for each of the Nine. The Community also played a positive On 10 December, all members of the role in ensuring that the needs and International Energy Agency, including problems of developing countries were the USA, followed suit. taken into account in the negotiations. The Energy Council also agreed to a • Lome II: The Convention, signed on monitoring procedure of oil imports. At 31 in Lome, Togo, by the the end of July, the Council approved a Community and 57 African, Caribbean second four-year energy research and Pacific (ACP) states, comes into programme the main emphasis of which force on 1 when the first will be directed towards methods of Convention (Lome I) expires. Described energy conservation and the development by M. Cheysson (the Commissioner of solar energy. Tenders for responsible for the negotiations on the demonstration projects in the field have Community side), as 'an impressive already been called for. package' and 'an advanced model for • Enlargement: Negotiations on Greek relations between industrial and entry into the Community were completed developing countries', Lome II builds on in , and Greece will join as a

4 European Community January/February 1980 full member on 1 . vegetables, starch and durum wheat, Negotiations on Spanish entry started in which would save an estimated 1,000 . Discussions on Portuguese million EUA (about £650m) in 1980. membership of the Community, which • Fishing: Present arrangements under were opened the previous year continued the Treaty of Accession allow member throughout 1979. countries to exercise certain restrictions • Protecting birds and wildlife: In on foreign fishing rights within their September, the Community signed the coastal waters. These arrangements expire Convention on the Conservation of on 31 December 1982, by which time a European wildlife and natural habitats policy of conservation must be introduced which requires signatories to take the as part of a revised Community fisheries necessary legal and administrative action policy. This deadline gives point to to protect listed plants, animals, birds, current negotiations aimed at developing amphibians and reptiles, as well as the a new fisheries policy satisfactory to environment needed for their survival. member countries on a very sensitive The legislation will supplement that issue. already adopted by the Community for • Energy: Apart from the agreement on the protection of birds. future oil imports, there was little impetus • Equal pay: In March, the Commission in 1979 towards a coherent Community decided to start infringement proceedings energy policy. The Commission has against member states whose national constantly warned that failure to develop legislation did not, in its view, fully conform such a policy in the 1980s could lead to with Community directives on equal pay economic disaster. While most member and equal access to employment, training governments have started to introduce and job promotion for men and women. positive energy conservation measures, coal and nuclear energy production have The Community role lagged behind targets. The Commission The Commission's role in the Community has already proposed a number of is a dual one - as a coordinator of measures designed to safeguard the national policies to ensure fair and free Community from an energy shortage in competition within the common market, the years ahead. In the light of events in and as the innovator of legislation that the Middle East and OPEC price increases promotes the Community interest. Roy these measures acquire a new urgency. Jenkins, President of the Commission, • Established industries: Slow economic has emphasised that the Commission is growth combined with intensifying not interested in intervention for competition from developing countries intervention's sake. But as the member and the Eastern bloc have hit traditional countries become increasingly basic industries in all the Community interdependent so the Community interest countries. Steel, shipbuilding and textiles grows. The fact that national have been the major casualties, resulting governments in the Council of Ministers in high unemployment, often in regions do not always adopt Commission already economically deprived. proposals neither invalidates the facts of Community negotiated measures such as interdependence nor the Community role. the Multi-Fibre Arrangements (textiles), The following shows how important this minimum prices and anti-dumping role will be in the eighties. procedures (steel), and proposals for a • Reform of the Common Agricultural 'scrap-and-build' policy (shipbuilding), Policy: The Commission has long been have all been designed to give a breathing concerned to keep the CAP under space to native industries pending control. Reinforced by the demand of modernization and conversion with the member countries for tougher action to aid of Community funds. These industries cut costs, it has just put forward specific will remain vulnerable in the 1980s and proposals covering the support can only benefit from Community arrangements for milk, beef, sugar, fruit, cooperation.

European Community January/ February 1980 5 • Telematics: The decline of old go to the root of Community policies. In industries highlights the need to addition the European Parliament has concentrate on developing the growth shown that it is determined to have a industries, such as telematics (a new word greater say on budgetary matters. The to cover the electronics industry, e.g. Commission's role in finding a solution in telecommunications and computers). this minefield will be crucial. While it remains so fragmented, each country going its own way, the telematics industry in Western Europe cannot A useful Community effectively compete with the Uncertainties in the Middle East and the and Japan. In the possible threat to Western oil supplies are Council approved a four year strategic obviously matters on which a common programme aimed at encouraging Community front will carry more weight common standards and inter-operability than the members acting individually. of equipment, and the rationalization of Although fragile at times of crisis, and far research and development within and from the founders' visions of political between Community countries. union, the seventies have seen a real Implementation of the programme will be development in cooperation among the a major task in the 1980s. Nine both politically and economically. In • Budget funding: Funding the budget, as the UN and in other foreign arenas, much as how the revenue is spent, is likely increasingly the Community is acting as to dominate Community's discussions in one, and is already regarded by outsiders, the early 1980s. Under the present particularly in the economic field, as a arrangement, the money is running out. tough political entity prepared to strike a Funding from own resources - customs hard bargain. duties, agricultural levies and up to one Members would not cooperate to this per cent of Value Added Tax (VAT) - extent unless they perceived it useful and, has not kept up with inflation, as historians point out, twenty years is a particularly where agriculture is very short time in the evolution of concerned, and by 1981 the VAT ceiling economic and political union. As the will have been reached. The Commission novelty and enthusiasm of earlier years has already drawn attention to the fade, the Community will be judged in the problems and suggested ways of eighties by its usefulness to its members increasing Community finances if the rather than as part of a great political Council insists that the VAT ceiling design. Some of us will regret this, but in should be maintained. The issues involved the end, usefulness is the touchstone of are not merely matters of arithmetic, but survival for all political organizations. Investment Bank In 1979 Britain received European The Foreign Ministers have agreed to Investment Bank (EIB) loans amounting provide free access to the Community to £550 million - one third of the money market for goods from Rhodesia until the lent to European countries. end of this year, after which the country is expected to join the Lome Convention. Farm Trade The UN High Commissioner for Refugees For the first time since Britain joined the has requested Community help for the EEC, there is no gap between the green£ repatriation of refugees in Mozambique, and the market rate for the£. For many Botswana and . The Commission products, the levies and subsidies which will allocate $4m - about half the have applied on UK agricultural exports cost- from Lome emergency funds. and imports since 1973 are suspended. They still apply for grains.

6 European Community January/February 1980 Solar energy could provide a lifeline for developing countries The prospects of an energy shortage and living in developing countries, will the high price of oil have stimulated consume 17,000 million toe. The research into developing new ways of inequality of energy consumption, producing energy. Solar energy is an however, will persist. Today, 30 per cent of obvious example. The Community 1980- the world's population (the industrialised 1983 Energy Research Programme countries) consumes 83 per cent of its allocated nearly £30m out of a £65m energy; in 2000, the figures will be 22 per budget to solar energy and the generation cent and 70 per cent. of energy from organic waste. But solar Already developing countries without energy is still expected to account for only their own oil resources have been badly hit 2 per cent of energy requirements in since 1973 by the soaring cost of oil. The industrialised countries by the year 2000, situation will get worse, and unless new although it could reach 4 per cent in the sources of energy are found, development hotter developing countries. will be increasingly restricted. In addition, the growing demand for fuel is already Inequalities of consumption causing problems, particularly in Africa, By the end of the century, world energy from the cutting down of forests, with the consumption is expected almost to triple. consequent effects on local climate. Today 4,000 million people consume Even so, individual energy 6,300 tonnes of oil equivalent (toe); by consumption in ACP states (African, 2000 a world population of 6,500 million, Caribbean and Pacific states signatory to of whom nearly 4,000 million will be the Lome Convention) as a whole is the

Drawing waler 1he 1radi1ional way is no daub! pic1uresque, but small scale pumps using solar energy may one day relieve these women in the Niger of a back-breaking job.

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European Community January/ February /980 7 lowest in the world: 85 kilograms oil from agricultural processing or vegetable equivalent a head, compared with a third sources to produce alcohol (ethanol) world average of 300kg, three tonnes oil which can not only be mixed with petrol in equivalent per head in Europe and 7 .5 toe the combustion engine, but which the in the USA. government hopes may eventually replace petrol altogether in a specially designed Role of solar energy car. While solar energy cannot replace traditional forms of energy in the foreseable future, experiments suggest Developments in solar that, particularly in rural areas, it can technology prove a useful source of domestic and Solar technology is still largely in its agricultural electrical power. infancy. Systems using solar panel collec­ Solar energy here means all the tors require enormous bulk in relation to renewable forms of energy derived from the amount of electricity that they the sun, either directly (by direct produce, but the development of the photovoltaic conversion) or indirectly (by photovoltaic solar panels (solar cells thermal conversion and use of biomass which operate on the basis of junctions in - organic waste - or wind power). While semiconductor materials) has already some industrialised countries are shown considerable potential. Such experimenting with sophisticated installations have the advantage that they equipment, such as giant heliostats, it is do not have any moving parts so that the clear that such techniques would not be maintenance required is minimal and it is relevant to the rural areas of Africa. Here possible to generate electricity it is the small installation that offers most continuously over a long period. hope. The Community's 1980-83 energy In , for instance, thousands of research programme will concentrate small cookers powered by a biomass particularly on furthering photovoltaic method are used all over the power generation, solar energy for countryside. Biogas cookers (biomass dwellings, and the generation of energy method) work off a gas produced from from biomass. Some money will also be organic waste and sewage water, the gas available for studies on wind energy. being piped from outside to where the Although the programme will be largely food is prepared. A similar experiment devoted to experiments relevant to failed in India, but the use of solar energy Community needs, the Commission to power small electricity generating anticipates that the research will also stations in villages and for pumping water benefit developing countries. have proved feasible in several developing Last March, the Commission sponsored countries. a symposium in Varese, Italy, at which the In Malawi and the Sahel, solar energy is main topic was 'Solar energy in the service being used to dry tobacco and fish, while of developing countries'. It was clear from the Philippines, and India are the discussions in which more than 250 experimenting in its use for drying crops. representatives from Africa, Latin Solar technology is also proving useful in America, Europe and the Middle East telecommunications; in Niger and Togo, took part, that while the industrial use of photovoltaic equipment is used to power solar energy seemed hardly feasible educational television networks; in Zaire, because of the cost and the sophisticated the use of solar cells to power a telephone nature of the equipment, the use of solar link has proved successful; in Jordan, 32 energy for domestic purposes as a means rural telephones and about 100 emergency of acquiring energy independence in phones on main roads are already being village and rural areas should be powered by solar energy. developed. In essence this means the On a more sophisticated scale, Brazil is development of a large number of small experimenting with the use of biomass solar energy projects.

8 European Community January/February 1980 Politics .a. Reforming the • Commission The Spierenburg report recommends streamlining before new member states arrive

The success of the European Commission Small bureaucracy in fulfilling its duties under the Rome The Spierenburg report notes that the Treaty should not be underestimated, but total number of Commission employees is this must not blind us to the fact that over smaller than is generally realised. the last ten years, sometimes for reasons Excluding research staff, it amounts to outside its control, the Commission's 8,300 officials, of whom some 40 per cent influence, effectiveness and reputation are directly or indirectly concerned with have declined. This is the view of the interpretation or linguistic work. independent review body appointed by Excluding research and language staff, the Commission in to therefore, the number is only 5,000. examine the Commission's organisation Compared with national central and staff resources in the light of administrations this is hardly excessive. anticipated changes in the 1980s and to The problem is rather one of Jack of suggest ways in which to maintain a cohesion within the college of permanent Community civil service of the Commissioners, an imbalance between highest quality. portfolios, a maldistribution of staff Chaired by Ambassador D. P. between departments, and shortcomings Spierenburg, and including Mr Dick in the career structure of the civil service Taverne as one of its members, the of the Commission. review body has recommended a number These weaknesses have arisen partly of important changes in the Commission from enlargement in 1973, partly from the structure, not least that, from 1981, only rather ad hoc way Commission one Commissioner should be appointed responsibilities have increased over the by each member country, thus limiting the years. In addition, because of the accident college to 12 when Greece, Portugal and of time at which they were recruited, very Spain become members in the 1980s. few top civil servants are expected to retire in the next six years, so that prospects for promotion are at present poor, and morale has inevitably suffered. In its closely argued report, the review body recommends urgent action to make the Commission a more coherent and flexible college, while at the same time streamlining portfolios and encouraging greater mobility among staff. The report stresses the need for the Commission to act as a college in maintaining its important position as initiator of action and guardian of the treaties vis-d-vis the Council and the

European Communiry January/ February 1980 9 European Parliament. This requires merging and streamlining of the D-Gs, so strong coordination procedures and that they have more relevance to its proper machinery for arbitrating between proposed portfolios. It would like to see claims of competing sectors within the by 1981 the vertical units regrouped into Commission. The review body believes 12 Directorates-General corresponding to that the college of Commissioners would eight portfolios, each covering a sector of be more effective if the President, assisted Community policy, while the horizontal by one Vice-President, were actively units should be put under the sole responsible for directing coordination. At authority of the Presidency. Later, on the present, as one among equals, the entry of Spain and Portugal, the number President has no such overriding power. of D-Gs would be reduced to ten to The review body also queries the coincide with the 10 portfolios that would number of portfolios, each headed by a then form the final structure of the Commissioner, that now exist. It makes Commission. In line with such innovation, out a case for eight permanent portfolios, the position of the Directors-General with a maximum of IO on enlargement, should be upgraded and they should be and suggests ways in which present given considerably greater authority and portfolios could be amalgamated or responsibilities. changed. The aim is to give portfolios Turning to other staff, the review body greater equality of importance and to was struck by the large number of spread the work of Commissioners more Divisions (247) and specialised services evenly. This is one reason why the report (92) that make up the basic administrative suggests the limitation of Commissioners structure of the Commission, many of to one from each member country (at which appear to have spawned present the larger states, Germany, haphazardly as the Community has France, Italy and the UK appoint two developed. The report recommends a Commissioners each) with a maximum of detailed review of existing units with a 12 with the advent of Greece, Portugal view to reducing their number, coupled and Spain. The report also sees merit in with a package of proposals regarding keeping the college of Commissioners promotion prospects and early retirement. small if it is to act effectively with coherence and flexibility. The review body would like action taken on this matter before the appointment of the new 1981 Commission. If, however, the Commission is to remain as large as ever, it recommends that there should be four or five Commissioners without portfolio who would assist four or five of their colleagues in the management of portfolios with a particularly taxing workload.

Administrative structure The review body also proposes a At present, the 13 Commissioners preside number of ways for improving the over 29 separate administrative units, recruitment, training and career prospects most of which are Directorates-General of all Commission staff. It inserts a word divided into Directorates and Divisions. of warning on the role of staff in the Some of these units have 'horizontal' private offices ('cabinets') of functions, such as the legal, budget and Commissioners. While admitting that they personnel services, while others are are useful in helping the Commissioner do 'vertical', concerned with policy sectors, his work, the report points out that 'some such as agriculture and external relations. aspects of their operations are starting to The review body recommends the cause difficulties and are even threatening

10 European Community January/February 1980 to disrupt, quite substantially, the smooth In his new year message to staff, running of Commission services'. The role Commission President Roy Jenkins said of the 'cabinet', the report suggests, is to that he and his colleagues attached act as trusted assistants to the particular importance to carrying through Commissioner and ensure that he is fully a programme of reform within the briefed on other portfolios to enable him Commission, based on the work of the to meet the demands of collective Spierenburg Group, during 1980. The responsibility. This role does not permit Commission is in favour of reducing the interference in policies and papers from number of basic administrative units and Directors-General without consultation. is also studying the constitutional issues The review body believes that if its raised in the report about the size, recommendations for better streamlining, composition and method of appointment coordination and control of Commission of future Commissions. It also hopes that portfolios are carried out, certain the report will soon be debated in the difficulties now apparent between European Parliament. cabinets and Commission staff would be eliminated.

Statistic of the month

Hard Coal (data in US $/ tonne of oil equivalent- toe)

Production costs within the Community (Average of the first half year 1979): 104.00 Import prices for coal imported into EEC: Steam coal (average of second quarter 1979) 51.00 Ranges: USA 54.00-63 .00 South Africa 41.00-47 .00 Australia 46.00-57 .00 Poland 50.00-57.00

Guide price for coke coal 94.00 (Situation: I /7 /79):

Crude Oil (data in US $/ metric tonne) L0w Cost Oil Production costs mainly in Near and Middle East: under 1.00-10.00 Medium Cost Oil mainly in Western Europe, Africa, Latin America and Far East, some parts of the USA: 25.00-75 .00 High Coat Oil USA, Arctic regions, deep-water resources: 75.00 and higher Source: Answer to a Written Parliamentary Question to the Commission.

European Community January/ February 1980 II Work-sharing and sandwich courses help reduce unemployment

With expectations of only an annual three one hour's time off. Agreement on such per cent economic growth rate, measures should be part of collective unemployment in the Community is bargaining agreements. forecast to rise in the 1980s. Though all Flexible retirement: The Council has age-groups will be affected, the young are asked the Commission to continue studies expected to suffer most. Until 1985, they on voluntary flexible retirement. Any will be reaching working age in ever measures should be seen as part of a increasing numbers. gradual withdrawal from working life at The Community is already providing the end of a worker's career, such as part­ aid through the Social Fund and other time work and longer holidays for older funds to national schemes aimed at workers. reducing unemployment. Now it is Part-time work: Such work should be • turning to other methods. Recently the open to both men and women, though Council of Ministers approved two care should be taken to ensure that part­ Commjssion schemes aimed at time work is not limited to unskilled, encouraging governments to examine poorly paid work by women. The extent various forms of work-sharing, and to to which part-time work could be made pursue schemes for young people that available to certain groups should be provide a positive. link between wor and examined, such as the elderly or parents training. with young children. Hours should be flexible and part-time workers should Work-sharing normally have the same social rights and The trade unions have been particularly obligations as full-time workers. keen to try to offset unemployment by Temporary work: Temporary providing more jobs through work­ employment should be controlled and sharing and related measures. The temporary employees receive social Commission suggests various ways such security protection. schemes might operate. It emphasises that The Council also "recommends that shift the success of such schemes will depend work must take into account working and on normal agreement procedures between health conditions, and there should be workers and management. further examination at Community level Limiting overtime working: The aim on prospects for a reduction in annual should be to limit overtime working, save working time. It considers that any only in exceptional cases. The best way to measures on work-sharing should be seen do this, the Commission suggests, would as part of a further programme be to introduce compensatory time off encouraging the alternation of work and rather than extra pay when overtime is training throughout working life. worked, whilst maintaining the principle that each hour of overtime abcve a certain limit should be equivalent to more than

12 European Community January /February 1980 Activities of the 16-18 age group (1978)

Number of Fu ll-time Part-time No Country young people education ed ucat ion education OOO's or training or training or training "lo "lo "lo

Belgium 16-17 160 78 3 19 17-18 160 64 6 30 Denmark 16-17 75 48 20 32 17-18 75 29 13 58 Germany 16-17 1,000 50 35 15 17- 18 970 33 46 21 France 16- 17 855 75 10 15 17-18 845 54 6 40 Ireland 16- 17 60 60 9 31 17- 18 60 29 4 67 It aly 16-17 880 55 II 34 I 7- 18 880 40 9 51 Luxembourg 16- 17 5 50 29 21 17-18 5 37 19 44 Netherlands 16-17 245 84 6 IO 17- 18 240 64 13 23 United Kingdom 16-1 7 900 60 7 33 17-1 8 875 32 12 56 EEC 16- 17 4,180 61 15 24 17- 18 4,110 41 18 41 Source: Estimates made by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training. inking work and training 455 occupations. In Germany also, part­ time day release is coi;npulsocy for all for young people young workers aged 16-1 8, which with The Commission has coined a new word apprenticeships undoubted1y accounts fo r 'alternance' (from the French to describe Germany's low proportion of young what in Britain are broadly known as people who are not undergoing some form 'sandwich courses'. 'Alternance', of education or training, compared with however, is a principle as much as a the Community as a whole (see table practice, which the Council sees as above). operating throughout life. Because of Care must be taken to ensure that current high unemployment among young 'alternance' does not degenerate into a people, such programmes should disguise for marginal jobs or a low-paid concentrate on them. In the Community workforce. The aim must be to provide as a whole, 25 per cent of the 16-17 age not only for vocational skills but also for group and 41 per cent of 17-18 year olds broader education to help the young leave school without pursuing any further worker adapt to change and new jobs. education or training. (In the UK, the The Community has set out guidelines figures are respectively 33 per cent and 56 for member countries to follow in per cent.) establishing coordinated programmes. Today such young people find it These programmes will obviously require increasingly dif 1cult to find or to retain close links between employers and the jobs. Opportunities for in-service appropriate education authorities and the training, however, vary widely between costs of training and remuneration to Community countries. In Belgium for trainees should be shared by the employer instance, apprenticeships are largely and the public authorities. It may be confined to manual workers, whereas in possible to get some money from the Germany they are found in almost all Social Fund to help with pilot schemes sectors of the economy, covering some and the coordination of experience.

European Community January / February /980 13 The Community helps clean up British beaches

Holidaymakers going to the seaside in In the directive, member states were any member state of the European asked to provide by the end of 1979 the list Community should increasingly benefit of beaches which would fall within the from EEC legislation designed to ensure scope of this law. These lists are now being that bathing waters reach high standards provided by member states, although the of cleanliness from sewage pollution, information is not yet complete. The industrial effluents, rubbish and all the British list was given to the House of other detritus which can make bathing Commons recently. In consultation with unpleasant or hazardous. water and local authorities, the Over a 10-year period, the bathing Department of the Environment has waters of the most heavily used beaches, designated 25 such beaches in the United whether Mediterranean, Atlantic or North Kingdom where the standards must be Sea should be cleaned up (if they need to respected. be) to meet certain minimum quality levels. Bathing at Brighton, c. 1820, where it all started - afar cry from /980 when Brighton will be trying to tempt more people into the water,by opening a naturist beach, the first major resort to do so. ~

14 European Community January/ February 1980 Applying the directive so on. It details the physical, chemical and The legislation, which was agreed by the bacterial limits that are permissible, and Council of Ministers.in 1975 as part of the requires constant sampling and inspection Environment Action Programme, to ensure that these standards are concerns the main 'bathing beaches'. As a observed. Exceptions are permitted such rule of thumb for identifying such as where geographical or natural soil beaches, the UK Department of the conditions create specific problems, but Environment used the simple criteria of a there must still be adequate public health beach where 500 people regularly bathe at protection. a time or 1500 people per mile - simple, at Accepting that some countries will find least, once the information has been it difficult to conform with the required collected. standards in time, the directive allows that Under these criteria, resorts like 'in exceptional circumstances' the IO-year Brighton, Blackpool and Clacton do not target date can be waived, but justification appear on the list, but there is no reason for such delay must be sent to the why these and other holiday towns should Commission not later than six years not cooperate with the local water following the introduction of the authority in assessing how far their directive. beaches meet the standards laid down and Beaches on the U .K. list are at: making the results known. Inspection in Bournemouth St. Ives (2) the UK is the responsibility of the water Bridlington (2) Sandown (IoW) authorities. Christchurch Scarborough (2) Margate Southend Provisions of the directive Newquay (2) Swanage The aim of the directive is to ensure Paignton (3) Torquay (3) that, within 10 years, bathing waters are Sennen (Cornwall) Weston-super-Mare free of pollutants harmful to health, such Poole Weymouth as sewage, pesticides, oil, detergents and Ryde (loW)

Grants and Loans Barworth Flock ton Ltd of Eccles field, The European Commission announced a Yorks. A loan of £5m is to be made to series of grants and loans of benefit to the ERF Ltd, British manufacturers of heavy UK: vehicles, for investment which should Regional Fund: In the fourth and final create about 400 new jobs at Wrexham, batch of Regional Fund grants for 1979, Clwyd. the UK is to receive £98m, most of which Farming and fishing: Grants from the goes to infrastructure development. This agricultural fund totalling £2 . 7m will help brings ERDF grants in UK to £170m for with investment in UK fisheries and food the year and to £420m since the fund was processing and marketing. established. Drax 8: An ECSC loan of £500m is to be made towards the cost of the Drax B coal Fishing fired power station in Yorkshire. The Ministers for Fisheries have agreed on Selby coal: The Community is expected to a total allowable catch (TAC) for 1980 and provide about half the capital needed for a system of obligatory notification of development of the Selby coalfield in catches. Some countries would have liked Yorkshire, through ECSC loans of £500m. larger permitted catches for various kinds The Commission has announced the of fish, but a decision on this has been put second phase of this lending, with a loan off until a report on the state of stocks is of£!90m. available from the International Steel and trucks: An ECSC loan of£ 1.4m Commission for the Exploitation of the has been announced for steel makers Sea.

European Community January / February 1980 IS Principles of the agricultural policy still right but costs must be controlled. The escalating costs of the Common Commission reiterated its warnings and Agricultural Policy are now a matter of proposed low price settlements, the public concern, said European Com­ Council went ahead regardless, increasing missioner Christopher Tugendhat recently. prices, and storing up surpluses - and Had the Council of Ministers heeded the trouble. warnings which the Commission has been The Council recently took the first giving in clear and unmistakable terms step to tackle the problem by agreeing on over the last three years, prevemive-atiion a procedure whereby Finance Ministers could have been taken and the,p'resetlt ' would be involved in the consideration of Community crisis on both finance and , :. the budgetary aspects of the farm prices agriculture could have been avoided.' 1 settlement for 1980/1. This is a step The action of the European Parliament forward and one very welcome to the in rejecting the Budget for 1980 indicates Commission. a widespread belief among MEPs that, without drastic action to highlight the Spending curbs imbalance in Community expenditure, the The European Parliament has made its Council of Ministers would continue to concern about the run-away tendencies of postpone decisions - which only they can CAP expenditure clearly heard. The take - and to let things drift. Commission welcomes this concern. We If as a result of the actions of the have already put to the Council of European Parliament the Council and the Ministers a package of proposals designed Member States really face up to the to curb agriculturatexpenditure, problems of agricultural expenditure, the especially in the dairy sector. It is need for effective Community policies in essential that the Council adopt this year non-agricultural-are-as, the costs of a realistic price settlement which takes enlargement, the pursuit of convergence, budgetary problems into account. and the question of whether all these It is worth noting that the Resolution by matters can be dealt with within the which the European Parliament rejected present limits on Community revenue, the 1980 Budget included a statement that then the present temporary financial it 'in no way attempted to call in question difficulty will not have been in vain. the principles of the Common Agricultural Policy, but simply to control Fierce attack the cost'. We agree with that view. In 1977, shortly after taking on the job Farmers should recognise that measures of Commissioner responsible for the to tackle the abuses of the CAP will Budget, I made a speech in Paris criticising safeguard, rather than undermine their the Council of Agricultural Ministers for interests. What we must seek to develop, excessively high price settlements which is a well-balanced agricultural policy which encouraged surpluses and thus inflated takes into account the interests of the costs of the CAP. Community producers, consumers and My remarks were regarded by the taxpayers, all of whom need and can Ministers as outrageous and I was fiercely benifit from a system providing secure attacked. Yet each year since, when the and stable supplies of food.

16 European Community January/ February 1980