European Council of Essen, 9-10 December 1994

The European Council of Essen was the last Summit in which Jacques Delors participated as President of the European Commission. He is considered as the architect of the Single European Act. Through his vision and actions, the Community achieved its goal of completing the Internal Market. He decisively contributed to overcoming the period of stagnation in the early 1980s and giving new dynamism to the integration process. His second major achievement is the economic and monetary union, to which he gave its fundamental basis.
The European Council in Essen defined, for the first time at European level, short-term and medium-term lines of action regarding employment. Confirming that the fight against unemployment is a priority for the European Union, the conclusions of this Summit highlight the structural causes of a large percentage of European unemployment and the crucial role of responsible dialogue between social partners and the political world in solving the problem.
The European Council had also defined five priority axes for member states’ employment policies: promoting investments in vocational training so that workers can keep up with technological developments throughout their lives; increasing employment during periods of growth (particularly through more flexible work organization, a wage policy that favors job-creating investments, and encouraging initiatives at regional and local levels); reducing indirect labor costs to encourage especially the recruitment of unskilled workers; increasing the efficiency of labor market policy by better identifying wage increase measures and regularly evaluating the efficiency of labor market policy instruments; strengthening measures that favor groups particularly affected by unemployment and for long periods (young people leaving the education system without a degree, older workers, and women).
These recommendations were implemented in the member states in the form of multiannual programs. Each year, the European Commission prepares a report on the progress of employment and the policies followed by member states, which it evaluates based on the defined priorities.
Finally, regarding the EU’s pre-accession strategy, the twelve Heads of State and Government adopted the PHARE financial program as a means of assistance in the accession process of the ten associated countries of Central and Eastern Europe, to promote infrastructure development and intra-regional cooperation. The aim is for the PHARE program to support the key element of the strategy, which is the progressive preparation of these countries for integration into the European Union’s internal market, through the gradual adoption of the Union’s internal market acquis. At the political level, the strategy will be implemented through the development of a structured relationship between the associated countries and the Union.