ESF in the 2007 to 2013 period: the baseline

The financial and economic crisis began to a substantial degree before the implementation of the current programmes had started. Therefore, the baseline against which crisis-related changes have to be compared is constituted by the operational programmes as approved at the onset of the period.

The aim of the European Social Fund (ESF) is to support the Member States in measures related to growth and employment based on⁷¹the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines (BEPG), the European Employment Strategy (EES), and Employment Policy Guidelines. More specifically, the ESF has been assigned the task to support Member States at reaching full employment, increasing quality and productivity at work, promoting social inclusion (in particular the access of disadvantaged people to employment), reducing national, regional and local employment disparities⁷². The principal goals⁷³ are:

 To increase adaptability of workers, enterprises and entrepreneurs by improving the anticipation and positive management of economic change ;

 To ensure accessibility to and promote participation in the labour market.

 To prevent social exclusion and combat discrimination by ensuring the access and inclusion of "disadvantaged workers".

 To strengthen the capacity of public institutions to develop and deliver policies and services including the promotion of partnerships between employers, trade unions, NGOs and public administrations to facilitate reforms.

 These are inter-related with the so-called horizontal priorities, namely, fostering gender equality, sustainable development and fighting discrimination.

71 The 2007 to 2013 programming period is governed by the following regulations and strategic guideline documents:

The regulations 1083/2006 (General regulation), 1828/2006 (on implementation rules) and 1081/2006 (on ESF)

The European Employment Strategy (EES) and the Social Inclusion Strategy cf. Integrated Guidelines for Growth and Jobs (2005 to 2008) (2005/600/EC)

The Community Strategic Guidelines, 2007-2013 - Cohesion Policy in Support of Growth and Jobs (COM(2005) 0299)

72 cf. Art. 2 of Reg (EC) 1081/2009)

73 European Commission (2011), European Social Fund - available at http://ec.europa.eu/esf/main.jsp?catId=35&langId=en (link valid: 20.09.2011)

Support is focused under the following four priorities⁷⁴ that cover the whole EU-27:

 Increasing the adaptability of workers, enterprises and entrepreneurs.

 Enhancing human capital and improving access to employment and sustainability of job seekers and inactive people, preventing unemployment, in particular long-term and youth unemployment, as well as encouraging active ageing and participation in labour markets.

 Improving social inclusion of less-favoured persons and combating all forms of discrimination.

 Mobilisation of reforms in the fields of employment and social inclusion through promotion of partnerships, pacts, networking of relevant stakeholder such as social partners, NGOs, etc at national, regional and local level.

The ‘convergence’ regions benefit from two additional priorities:

 Expanding and improving investment in human capital.

 Strengthening institutional capacity at national, regional and local level and the efficiency of public administrations.

In the current period, the ESF will spend over €75bn on creating more and better jobs in Europe. These funds are allocated to the six priorities with a particular emphasis on

“human capital” (33.1% of funds) and on “access to employment” (28.6% of funds).

“Adaptability” is planned to consume 17.9% of ESF resources, and “social inclusion”

13.2%. The smallest allocations are for “institutional capacity” (2.7%) and for

“partnership” (1.2%).

Figure 27: Allocation of funds to the ESF interventions by priority theme⁷⁵ (in %)

17,9%

28,6%

13,2%

33,1%

1,2% 2,7% 3,3%

Adaptability

Access to employment Social Inclusion Human Capital Partnership

Institutional Capacity TA

Source: DG Employment European Social Fund 2007 – 2013

74 These priorities as laid down within the preamble, para. 9 and 10, of the ESF Regulation are further specified and broken down by Art. 3 - Scope of Intervention - into 11 topics applicable to all 27 MSs (i.e.

convergence and competitiveness regions) and into 5 additional ones for convergence regions alone.

However, presentations of EU wide figures are often broken down following the systematic

categorisation of funds assistance: codes for the priority theme dimension or ‘Priority Codes’ provided in Annex II, Part A, of the Implementation Regulation (EC) No 1828/2006 (extended version of the one presented in Annex IV of the General Regulation)

75 http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/emplweb/esf_budgets/results.cfm (23.09.2011), based on codes assigned to priority themes

Figure 28 provides a more detailed indication in absolute figures in relation to different interventions in the respective priorities described above.

Figure 28: Allocation of funds to the ESF interventions by priority theme (in €)

Source: DG Employment European Social Fund 2007 - 2013

The ESF has a wide remit. Each year ESF interventions reach some 5 million unemployed or inactive persons, 4.7 million women, 3.2 million persons aged below 25, and 1.4 million persons aged over 54. Nevertheless, the majority of recipients are of middle age (10 million) and are employed with medium-level skills (8 million)⁷⁶. The actual effect on the specific groups, especially the most disadvantaged and those inactive in the labour market cannot be assessed on the basis of the material available nor in the short time-frame. Comparable data which could support such an analysis are mostly not available at European Commission level.

76 European Commission (2011), European Social Fund, Who is participating - available at http://ec.europa.eu/esf/main.jsp?catId=66&langId=en; based on codes assigned to themes

However, in assessing the role that the ESF has played in helping the Member States tackle the effects of the crisis, it is important to understand the differences in volume, approach, role in relation to national active labour market policy measures, the scope of programmes (thematic and/or regional), as well as the effectiveness of their implementation.

ESF funding allocations

Some countries receive comparatively high allocations in absolute terms. The largest ESF contribution in the EU is received by PL (€9.7bn over the entire period), followed by CZ (€9.4bn), DE (€9.3bn), ES (€8bn), IT (€6.9bn) and PT (€6.1bn).

In terms of the average annual ESF allocations per inhabitant for the current programming period, PT has the highest allocation (€89), followed by GR, CZ, HU, SI (slightly above €50). At the other end of the spectrum there are DK, LU, NL, AT (around €7 €10) with the UK, FR, SE, IE, BE, DE, IT in an intermediate position (€10

-€17).

Figure 29: ALMP and ESF allocation as % of GDP (2009)

Source: Eurostat 2009

ESF and national ALMP

The overall ALMP budgets of Member States are much higher in the EU-15 than in the EU-12. They amount to 0.5% or more of GDP in most EU-15 Member States. In EU-12 ALMP budgets are significantly lower, mostly below 0.5% of GDP, but in some cases even less than 0.1% (see Figure 29). So in fact, in these countries ESF often constitutes the most important part of ALMP. In all EU-12 Member States (with the exception of CY) ESF spending on ALMP exceeds national ALMP funding by 50% or more⁷⁷.

Effectiveness in spending and reimbursement

Expenditure rates so far differ considerably between Member States: BG, RO, CZ, HU, MT have submitted up until 2010 reimbursement requests for less than 10% of their ESF funds for the current programming period, while amounts to over 25% have been requested from other countries (UK, FR, DE, ES, PT, LV, EE, AT, IE, SE). Figure 30 shows the average allocation of ESF per inhabitant (i.e. the intensity of ESF funding) and the share of certified expenditure on the total allocations so far. There can be several reasons for these delays: the programme had in some regions a late and slow start – for various reasons; administrative procedures taking place between spending and reimbursement, take time and are sometimes also an issue of concern; finally in some Member States implementation as such is a problem. Some indications for problems in proper and timely spending can be found in Member States with high per capita allocations (CZ, HU, CY) and in some with medium-range allocations (BG, RO).

Low rates of absorption bear the risk of losing funds following the rule of automatic de-commitment (also known as n+2 rule).⁷⁸

Convergence and competitiveness

The main difference in the positioning of the ESF across Member States is in terms of its relative weight compared to the national ALMP budgets. This correlates with the programme objectives. Member States with a high share of convergence regions (RO, PL, BG, LT, EE, LV, GR, ES, PT) have considerably higher allocations of ESF in relation to their LM budget, compared with Member States with no, or negligible, convergence regions. The latter have a small amount of ESF compared to the overall ALMP expenditure (e.g. FR, BE, NL, LU, SE, FI, AT, DK).⁷⁹

National and regional operational programmes

Member States have chosen different approaches towards setting up OPs. Some, such as UK, BE, IT, AT and ES have opted for a number of regional programmes, while others such as PL, FR, RO, BG, have one programme to cover the whole country. DE and IT have regional and country-wide OPs.

77 EUROSTAT – data on ALMP 2008 and ESF annual allocations for 2007 to 2013

78 The automatic de-commitment rule has been introduced in the previous programming period as an instrument to raise budgetary discipline among MSs. It stipulates, that allocations of EU funds for the year n that are not properly absorbed (i.e. neither reimbursed as certified expenditure from the European Commission nor paid as pre-financing) until the end of the year n+2 (or n+3 for MSs whose GDP from 2001 to 2003 was below 85 % of the EU-25 average in the same period but restricted to the allocations of 2007-2010) will revert to the EC. This rule should prevent large amounts of money from not to having been used as intended by the end of the programming period. (See General Regulation Art 93) 79 DE is an exception having substantial convergence regions with the new federal states (former GDR)

and nonetheless the ESF provides only a small amount compared to national ALMP budgets.

Figure 30: ESF allocation⁸⁰ and rate of certified expenditures (2007-2010)

Certified expenditures until 2010 9,0< 10 %

15,010 % ‐ 25 % 26,0> 25 %

ESF/inhab/year € 14 0 ‐ 15 16 15 ‐ 25 26 25 ‐ 35 36 35 ‐ 45 46 > 45

Source: DG EMPL Database 2010

This reflects to some extent the degree of decentralisation and autonomous regional government structures in the Member States and institutional arrangements concerning the labour market. While the regionalisation of operational programmes can be an important factor in developing the capacity of delivery systems, national operational programmes are not necessarily any less effective, and centralised operational programmes may provide for regional sub-priorities, as in PL and FR. Box 10 presents examples of different approaches from IT and PL.

80 ESF per capita – annual average of the allocation 2007 to 2013

Box 10: Division of tasks and functions between the national and the regional level In Italy the central level (General Directorate of Labour Market) has a strategic role in ESF programmes. It defines the national priorities, coordinates monitoring and evaluation of the programmes at national and regional level. Governance, Education and “Azioni di sistema” are the 3 OPs at multi-regional level. The General Directorate is responsible for job matching systems, interventions on job placement policies, labour market policies for specific and disadvantaged groups, equal opportunities, family and work conditions, facilitating and promoting local development, youth employment and networking.

There are five regional OPs in convergence and 16 in competitiveness regions (Abruzzo, Emilia-Romagna, etc). The regions are in charge of planning and coordinating the interventions of job-matching to improve employment for specific target groups, planning of socially useful works, and evaluation of training and internships for workers. Provinces and communes have been given the responsibility (by a national decree) to implement active labour market policies. They are in charge of public employment services that have been reorganised to provide services for job-matching.

In Poland there is only one operational programme (Human Capital OP) with a total of € 9.7 billion - by far the largest of all ESF programmes. The programme consists of priorities implemented at the central and the regional levels. About 70% of the funds are dedicated to support regions. This includes support to persons and social groups. Under the central component the funds are mainly used for supporting structures and systems in particular sectors.

4.2 European Union interventions towards the ESF to mitigate the crisis