Europe / A Scorecard to Help Tackle Unemployment Crisis

The European Union on Wednesday proposed a scorecard to help national authorities remedy emerging social problems and a lack of jobs—part of a push led by Germany to dispel accusations the bloc has done little to defuse the region’s festering unemployment crisis.

The proposal, however, already appears to face long odds. Senior finance officials from national governments argued in a letter sent Wednesday that Europe’s complex new system for policing economic policy across the 28 nation bloc doesn’t need yet another scorecard on top of others measuring national economic performance.

Diplomats and officials say the system is already on the verge of becoming unwieldy and incapable of sending clear signals to political leaders.

Urged by Germany and France, EU leaders at a June summit said the bloc needed better ways to monitor economic and social conditions in member states. The move came amid criticism that leaders were ignoring the effects of austerity on the social fabric of the euro zone’s periphery, where unemployment—particularly youth unemployment—has settled at sky-high levels. The leaders called on the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, to come up with ideas to tackle the euro zone’s socio-economic challenges.

The scorecard would be used as part of the “European Semester,” the elaborate process of national budget and economic policy reviews the EU has constructed in response to the sovereign debt crisis. Among the requirements: Governments must submit draft budgets to the commission before they have been approved by national parliaments.

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via EU Proposes Scorecard to Help Tackle Unemployment Crisis – WSJ.com.