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Community Initiative Programmes (CIPs) (2000-2006)
A new cycle of "Community Initiative Programmes" (CIPs) has been introduced based on the new regulations of the Structural Funds for the period 2000-2006:
1) INTERREG, aiming at transnational and crossborder cooperation, not only within the EU, but also between EU countries and others separated only by the sea (ex: France and Tunisia)
2) URBAN, aiming at improvement of depressed city areas
3) LEADER, addressing rural development
4) EQUAL, promoting new practices in the fight against discrimination and inequality
These CIPs have the following features:
- they are tailored to specific objectives
- they must generate innovative projects
- they must be transnational
- they are funded by lower budget than the Structural funds
They are to be funded through the budget of the Structural Funds, in particular: INTERREG: EUR 4.875 million
URBAN: EUR 700 million
LEADER: EUR 2.020 million
EQUAL: EUR 2.847 million
EQUAL
The Community initiative EQUAL is the most relevant from a trade union's perspective.
EQUAL is the heir to two other Community Initiative Programmes dating back to 1994 and 1999: ADAPT, which concerned the adaptation of workers to changes in industry, above all through vocational training; and EMPLOYMENT, which promoted the use of human resources through four separate programmes: NOW, for women; HORIZON for the less favoured people; YOUTHSTART for young people under 21; and INTEGRA for more vulnerable groups on the job market.
These Community initiative Programmes have given rise to thousands of projects throughout Europe, implemented by local authorities, enterprises, training companies, schools, universities, social partners, voluntary organisations.
EQUAL aims to draw on the best results achieved by ADAPT and EMPLOYMENT, but placing them in a more strategic framework, intervening in an all-embracing way by obtaining the co-operation of the actors: mainly enterprises, together with local and national decision makers, small local partners and social partners.
Themes and procedure
Since September 2000, Member States have been submitting their proposals for EQUAL to the European Commission, following the publication of the Equal Guidelines.
Each Member State, in preparing its programme proposal (called "CIP") presents the way it intends to implement the Community Initiative.
Following the submission of the programme "CIP", negotiations between the Commission and Member State have taken place in order to adopt these CIPs.
EQUAL operates within 8 themes directly linked to the four Pillars of the European Strategy for Employment, and a ninth covers the specific needs of asylum seekers.
Each Member State has chosen the themes closer to its national priorities and interests, also looking at the benefits of working at transnational level; national Call for proposals sets out the themes under which partnerships can apply for EQUAL funding.
The Call for proposals launched in 2004 confirms the nine following themes:
Employability
1) Access and return to the labour market for those who have difficulty in being integrated or re-integrated
2) Combat of racism and xenophobia in relation to the labour market
Entrepreneurship
3) Business creation and exploitation of new possibilities for creating employment in urban and rural areas;
4) Social economy (third sector), with a focus on quality of jobs
Adaptability
5) Lifelong learning and inclusive work practices which encourage recruitment for those suffering discrimination and inequality in the labour market
6) Adaptability of companies and employees to structural economic changes, and use of IT and new technologies
Equal Opportunities for women and men
7) Reconciliation of family and professional life
8) Reduction of gender gaps and support of job desegregation
Asylum seekers
9) Helping the integration of asylum seekers
Each proposal will have to envisage a series of co-ordinated operations designed to eliminate discrimination or inequality generated by the job market in a given geographically defined area or in a given area of business, through co-operation between the local and national authorities, employers' organisations, trade union organisations, training centres, schools, universities and NGOs.
Each project approved is broken down into the following stages:
The first stage is devoted to the establishment of a real partnership. A series of meetings will be funded between the partners. The partners will need to set out a detailed plan of action, with a description of roles and tasks, for the initial period of funding (around 6 months), and an outline of activities planned thereafter. If the partnership is selected, this initial period will move on to find transnational partners, consolidate the Development Partnership and firm up the work programme.
All these elements have to be set up before moving to the second stage, for the implementation of the activities.
The third stage, with the support both of the Commission and of the national authorities, consists of networking all the projects addressing the same issue, in disseminating the best results, and in building those results into the policies at national and European level.
Opportunities for trade union training
Community regulations provide for the full involvement of trade unions and employers' organisations in the Structural Funds and the EQUAL Programme's stages of implementation, with particular emphasis on the drafting of the plans, funding criteria, monitoring of the plans and making the final assessment. Final decisions concerning individual projects will be the responsibility of institutional bodies such as ministries and regional authorities, which in the past have not always shown due attention to trade unions' projects. Anyway, reading the general objectives in the Four Pillars proposed for the NAPs and for the European Social Fund, references to workers and to the importance of training as a crucial factor in improving employability are present, and trade unions must make good use of them.
The best opportunities will arise in connection with projects aimed at training or retraining of workers, or at providing support for the vocational orientation of young persons and the unemployed.
Even if the content of projects will be mainly related to vocational training, the term "vocational training" should in any case be interpreted in the broadest possible sense, thus including a number of areas of expertise and experience related to trade union education departments.
The training of trade union officials involved in the implementation and management structures of the European Social Fund, of labour market policies, of employment initiatives at local level, of immigration problems, of the issues of equal opportunities and the various forms of inequality, offers a crucial role for trade union education, in areas such as needs analysis of necessary skills, drafting of curricula, development of training modules, innovative material and using IT tools.
Partnership
Equal operates by bringing together the key players in a geographical area or sector: public administration, NGOs, social partners and business sector will work in partnership, called "Development Partnership", agreeing a strategy to deal with new ways of discrimination and inequality.
Essential keys: links with at least one partnership from another country and involvement in a network of others dealing with the same issue across Europe.
Partners can also come from candidate countries.
Dissemination and mainstreaming
At national and European level Member States set up arrangements for identifying good practices, sharing results and networking projects dealing with the same issues.
For further information, (brochure, guidelines, questions and answers, relevant information, contact points in Member States) please click on
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/equal
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