Over 20 million unemployed in the EU-27The number of unemployed in the EU27 has now surpassed the psychologically important barrier of 20 million: this is confirmed by Eurostat, which has just published the data of the European labour market updated to the end of April 2009. The percentage of jobless thus stands at 9.2% in the euro zone (in the 16 countries that have adopted the single currency), and at 8.6% in the European Union as a whole. This is the highest rate for ten years in the single currency area. In comparative terms, the figure for the euro zone in April a year ago was 7.3%. So, according to the estimates of Eurostat, there are 20,825,000 unemployed in the European Union as a whole (that’s 4 million more than last year), over 14 million of whom are in the single currency area. At the national level, the best situation remains that in the Netherlands (3%) and Austria (4.2%), while the most worrying is that in Spain (18.1% of unemployed), Latvia (17.4) and Lithuania (16.8). Other States above the EU average are France, Portugal, Hungary, Ireland, Slovakia and Estonia. Only two States have bucked the trend by actually registering a decrease in the number of jobless: namely, Romania (down from 6.1 to 5.8%) and Greece (from 7.9 to 7.8%). As regards youth under the age of 25, the unemployment rate in the EU27 has risen to 18.7%. If we wish to compare this situation with that in leading non-European economies, the unemployment rate registered in the USA in April 2009 was 8.9% and that in Japan 4.8%. On the question of employment, the European Commission published a document of analysis and political proposal on 3 June; it will serve as a contribution to the debate at the summit of the 27 heads of state and of government of the EU in mid-June. The communication focuses on some key points: promotion of worker mobility; improvement of skills through professional training, so as to furnish more effective responses to labour market demand; and improvement of channels of access to jobs.Social protection: Northern Europe spends moreThe EU countries that dedicate greater per capita resources to expenditures for social protection (old age pensions, public health, family credits, unemployment benefits…) are mainly situated in Central and Northern Europe. This finding is confirmed by Eurostat, according to which the social protection costs were equivalent to 26.9% of gross domestic product in the EU27 in 2006 (last complete data available). The average expenditure on social protection however has decreased in comparison with previous years: the rate was 27.1% in 2005 and 27.2% in 2004. The countries that invest most in social protection are Luxembourg (record figure with an expenditure of 13,000 euro per caput per year), Belgium, Germany, France, Netherlands, Austria, UK, Sweden and Finland, all above 7,000 euro per year. At the bottom of the classification are Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Hungary, i.e. countries formerly under Communist regimes. As the EU statistics office explains, these “disparities reflect differences in living standards, but also illustrate the diversity of national systems of social protection, as also the demographic, economic, social and institutional structures of individual states”. In the year taken into consideration, old age pensions represented 46% of the overall cost of social protection, followed by healthcare services (29%), invalidity and family pensions (8% each), unemployment benefits, housing benefits and social exclusion services.Post-Kyoto: Dimas says the EU is on targetThe pollution produced by domestic and industrial uses is decreasing, but that generated by refrigeration and air conditioning is increasing. Stavros Dimas, European Commissioner for the Environment, recently announced, however, that “for the third year running greenhouse gas emissions in the EU have decreased”. “The emissions inventory compiled by the European Environment Agency for 2007” – the last year for which complete data are available – “indicates a fall of 1.6% of emissions in the 15-member Europe compared with 2006”. During the same period the economy had grown by 2.7%, thus separating in part the economic development data from the problem of atmospheric pollution. Thanks to this contraction, attributable to some production sectors and also depending on specific meteorological conditions, “emissions have decreased by 5% over the last reference year, i.e. 1990, suggesting that the EU “is well on the way to achieving the objective established by the Kyoto Protocol of reducing emissions by 8% in the period 2008-2012”. According to Dimas, these emission reductions “give us the confidence that we will successfully reach our Kyoto target”.
