Government of the Future Centre

Sustainable Employment Roundtable 2012, Brussels

22nd of May 2012

Executive Brief

The global economic downturn has had a dramatic impact on unemployment in Europe. Five years after the start of the crisis, unemployment throughout the EU remains high, currently standing at 10.2%. At a country level, however, the pattern is mixed. Unemployment rates range from just 4% in Austria to nearly 25% in Spain.

The challenge facing EU member states is daunting. At a time when economic growth is declining and European governments face the burden of increasing debt, many are cutting budgets and creating further job losses.

Yet unemployment has to be tackled if economies are to return to growth. The particular challenges of high youth unemployment and growing numbers of long-term unemployed need to be urgently addressed. Other trends, such as an ageing population, an increase in the number of NEETs (people not in employment, education or training) and a skills shortage in certain areas, make this a complex problem. The danger that member states face is that unemployment becomes structural rather than cyclical.

Governments need to address these problems, not through short-term measures, but by creating a climate for sustainable employment, in which employers are able to offer job opportunities that provide long-term prospects. That environment could be created by a greater focus on training and skills development, the creation of apprenticeships, incentives to jobseekers to start their own businesses, and a greater co-operation between agencies whose role it is to get people into work. In this environment, the long-term unemployed will be encouraged into jobs, and young people will be equipped with the necessary skills to find jobs that offer good prospects.

To grapple with these issues, the Government of the Future Centre held a dedicated Roundtable on sustainable employment in May 2012. Its aim was to discuss the ways in which member states could create a climate of sustainable employment, and to share initiatives that member states are currently taking.

Europe’s Jobs Crisis

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Moderators

Jan-Erik HunnHuman services lead, Europe, Africa, Middle East and Latin America, Accenture

Seán ShineManaging director for health and public service, Europe, Africa, Middle East and Latin America, Accenture

Paul HofheinzPresident,The Lisbon Council

Key speakers

Lambert KleinmannPolicy officer, employment services, EURES, mobility, DG employment, social affairs and inclusion, European Commission

Xavier Prats MonnéDeputy director-general, DG education and culture, European Commission

Michael van der CammenHead, international relations,Bundesagentur für Arbeit,Germany

Ana Carla PereiraHead of unit, skills and qualifications, DG education and culture, European Commission

Christian CharpySenior magistrate, Court of Auditors / former CEO, Pôle emploi / author, La tête de l'emploi,France

Harriet WallaceDeputy director, labour markets and distributional analysis team, Her Majesty’s Treasury, United Kingdom

Adriana CiceroDirector, unemployment benefits, income support direction, National Social Security Institute (INPS),Italy

Dominik ZillerDirector-general, migration, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ),Germany

Mark KeeseHead, employment analysis and policies division, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

Key Speakers & Moderators

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Where Are We Now?

Unemployment in Europe is a key challenge as a result of the economic crisis. However, there are certain underlying trends that give cause for particular concern:

•Rising long-term unemployment. The proportion of unemployed people who have been unemployed for longer than a year has increased throughout the EU. This is resulting in high structural unemployment and employment agencies find it even harder to place this group back into work.

•Growingyouthunemployment. There is an increased proportion of unemployed people between the ages of 15 and 24 within the EU. Of the EU’s 24 million people currently unemployed, 6 million are under the age of 25. Related to this, the proportion of young people not in employment, education or training has risen in all countries.

•Mismatch in the supply and demand of key skills. There is a mismatch between the skills that jobseekers have and the skills required by today's employers. Many jobseekers have been trained in industries that are disappearing, and so their skills are obsolete. Often they have not updated their skills during their period of unemployment. At the same time, the

skills required by employers are changing (e.g.the green revolution means there will be reallocation of jobs from brown industry sectors to green energy sectors.)

•Ageing populations. The over-65s make up 17%1 of the population in Europe, and this group is growing. Many people will have to stay in the labour force longer. The increase in the number of older people, with a particular set of needs, also means that the skills required in the workforce are changing.

•At risk demographics. There are certain sections of the population that find it particularly challenging to find and stay in work, including migrants, lone parents and disabled people. This is a target group that employment agencies are looking to focus their efforts on.

•Cross-border challenges to filling vacancies. There are 4 million unfilled vacancies across Europe. Some countries have much higher unemployment rates than others, but there are barriers to filling those vacancies with workers from other countries, owing to language and other mobility constraints.

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Transforming The Labour MarketGovernments are well placed to stimulate job creation and to take a central, top-down view of the problem of matching jobseekers to jobs. They are able to collect information about demographic trends, skills shortages and regional variations in unemployment rates, and to use that to develop bespoke policies on migration, education and training and welfare benefits. They are in a position both to stimulate the demand side (by offering incentives, for example, to SMEs) and to improve opportunities on the supply side (such as offering appropriate training programmes to particular groups of the unemployed). Governments are also able to co-ordinate action between different actors (public employment services, private employment services, training providers, large and small employers and career guidance specialists) to provide the most effective approach to job creation. Encouraging universities and colleges to update their curriculum to be more in tune with the business demands and to put a greater emphasis on e-learning can enable a greater number of people to acquire appropriate skills quickly.

European governments can also work with each other. Despite high unemployment, there are also 4 million vacancies across the member states. A pan-European approach to labour market strategy could enable workers from one country to fill vacancies in another. There are, however, barriers to this happening. Europe has historically low rates of job mobility and there are still restrictions on some segments of workers from the new accession countries. Language is one obvious drawback, but another relates to differences in job requirements, specifications and peer recognition: an engineer in Germany may require a different set of skills or qualifications from one in Spain, for example. The European Commission can work with member states to address these issues, making it easier and more attractive for jobseekers to cross country borders.

Governments throughout Europe are developing a range of policies to stimulate the labour market, both on the demand side and on the supply side. Many have realised the importance of focusing on SMEs, which provide 67%2 of business jobs outside the financial sector. Governments can support the growth of SMEs by offering financial support, access to technical and business know-how, a strong intellectual property regime and apprenticeship schemes. They can put particular efforts into sectors that are predicted to grow, such as that of green technology.

On the supply side, governments have to focus on addressing the challenges of long-term and youth unemployment. The critical problem in both cases is often a lack of skills (or a possession of obsolete skills) so governments have to work with employers and training providers to make sure that unemployed people are offered appropriate training, whether through apprenticeships, work-based schemes or college courses.

In some countries, unemployment has become a way of life for some groups of people, and there may be a psychological reluctance to enter the workforce, especially if unemployment is more financially rewarding than taking on part-time work. Governments need to consider ways of making sure that work pays. Some demographics, such as lone parents, find it particularly challenging to get back into employment, so governments could also be making easier for these groups through initiatives such as improving childcare provision, and incentivising employers to create flexible working opportunities.

The Sustainable Employment Vision For Europe

Governments throughout Europe are developing a range of policies to stimulate the labour market, both on the demand side and on the supply side. The EU member states can work with the European Commission to address the skills gap. Governments also need to focus their efforts on the Public Employment Services which have a hugely important role to play in improving labour market participation.

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The European Skills AgendaIf Europe is to achieve sustainable employment, then it needs to address the skills gap by making sure that people have the appropriate qualifications and training to meet demand. More importantly, skills should drive demand, so that people with appropriate skills (such as ICT) create new businesses and invigorate the economy.

Governments and employers can work together to address at least some of these problems. For example, by developing a standard for comparing the equivalence of qualifications across national boundaries. The European social fund, which was created to improve employment opportunities, can be used to offer language courses to would-be migrants. An increase in the numbers of students attending university in other member states could also encourage the flow of labour to countries where it is most needed.

The transformation of education will be key to closing Europe’s skills gap. Education and training need to be more relevant, more responsive and more effective. There is currently a mismatch between what education systems (and universities in particular) teach, and what the labour market requires. There is an over-emphasis on humanities and social science, often at the expense of technical and vocational subjects. Governments need to provide a mix of incentives to encourage students to choose more technical subjects, and to encourage universities to provide courses in those subjects.

Universities are also poor at providing for lifelong learners: the model of the three- or four-year degree, taken by people aged 18 or 19, still prevails. One of the reasons for the success of private MBA courses is that they have been made available to people to study while working full-time, often at a point in their career when they are most ready to develop such skills.

There is plenty of scope to develop new models, especially through e-learning. Last year Stanford University, for example, made three courses available for free over the Internet. One of them, in artificial intelligence, attracted 160,000 enrolments from all over the world. The potential of ICT to improve opportunities for learning new skills is huge. Some leading universities in Europe are now following a similar approach.

Governments also need to focus their efforts on the biggest reserve of untapped capacity: women. Internationally, there is a clear correlation between the strong performance of the labour market and the high participation of women. By developing initiatives to encourage women into education and into the job marketplace, governments can boost the competitiveness of their economies.

Finally, there is also an older generation of unemployed workers who may have acquired valuable skills after 20 years in the workplace, but who lack formal qualifications. These workers still have much to offer. Member states need to help employers, who sometimes put too much emphasis on paper qualifications, recognise what these older workers have to offer to help them contribute to the workplace.

The Sustainable Employment Vision For Europe

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Creating High-Performing Labour AgenciesPublic Employment Services have a hugely important role to play in improving labour market participation. Equipped with the relevant data, they are able to identify gaps in the labour market, increase employability and incentivise people to fill the gaps.

The approach of employment services has had to adapt in response to changing conditions. Increasingly, public-private partnerships have been found to be a very effective method of getting people into work – private organisations specialising in career advice, for example, can complement the service provided by Public Employment Services. The kind of skills required by Public Employment Service staff is also changing, and governments need to make sure that such services employs people who have the necessary skills to match jobseekers to employers in the current labour market context.

Historically, most employment services have worked with clients face-to-face. As we can observe with some agencies in Europe for instance, the Netherlands, this is no longer the preferred method of matching people to jobs. In future, IT and self-service approaches will be critical to carrying out this service effectively. IT can enable Public Employment Services to:

•Profileandsegmentthejob-seekingpopulation i.e. gather and analyse data about what kinds of jobs are available, and where they are available; the number of unemployed people, where they are

located, how long they have been unemployed, and what skills they have

•Identifycommontrendsandthemes. For example, which skills are in high demand; what groups of people are most likely to be long-term unemployed; and which regions have the highest rates of unemployment

•Matchjobseekersmoreeffectivelytoemployers

•UseemailandSMStoinformjobseekersof jobs and to follow up whether they have responded to vacancies

•Targetparticulargroupsorindividualswith programmes for getting them into work, and then measure the success of those programmes

•Co-ordinateeffortsbetweendifferentagencies

Public Employment Services can also concentrate resources on particular hard-to-help groups, such as migrants or disabled people. Historically, many such services have used segmentation, taking different approaches with different groups. There is some uncertainty as to how effective this is as a strategy, and some Public Employment Services are now working instead on creating a personalised approach for each individual, rather than for broad groups. The Public Employment Service representatives present at the event believed this would be an interesting area to explore further.

The Sustainable Employment Vision For Europe

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How Can The European Commission Help Governments Achieve Sustainable Employment?

The European Commission is committed to helping improve employment rates throughout member states. Developed as part of the Europe 2020 Strategy, the Commission’s Agenda for new skills and jobs aims to help the EU reach an employment rate of 75% for those in the 20-64 years age group by 2020. This Agenda proposes a four-pronged approach:

• Improvetheflexibilityandsecurityoflabourmarkets

•Equippeoplewiththeappropriateskillsfortoday’slabour market

• Improvethequalityofjobsandcreatebetterworkingconditions

• Improvetheconditionsforjobcreation,suchasreducedadministrative burdens or lower taxes on mobility

Work on putting these approaches into practice has already begun. A new employment package sets out ways for member states to stimulate demand by reducing taxes on labour or supporting business start-ups. It identifies three areas with the biggest job potential for the future: the green economy, health services and ICT. The package covers three broad topics:

•Encouragingmemberstatestostrengthennationalemployment policies through, for example, creating the right conditions for job creation.

• Identifyingkeyareasofreformtomakelabourmarketsmore dynamic, inclusive and resilient to economic change. This includes stimulating internal flexibility to reduce job insecurity and fiscal costs. Such reforms should also establish decent and sustainable wages to help avoid low-wage traps.

•CreatingagenuineEUlabourmarket.Thelegalandpractical obstacles to the free movement of workers should be removed. These range from improving the portability of pensions, through to the tax treatment of cross-border workers and simply raising awareness of rights and obligations. The Commission will also create a job portal that can create a clear geographical mapping of European job offers.

In 2010, the Commission launched a project entitled “Monitoring labour market developments in Europe”. This gathers information on job vacancies, and is made available through two quarterly bulletins, the European Vacancy Monitor and the European Job Mobility Bulletin. The data published in these two bulletins can be used by policy-makers, jobseekers and employment advisers.

The European Commission, as part of the Europe 2020 Strategy, developed a four-pronged approach to help improve employment rates throughout member states. Work on putting these approaches into practice has already begun.

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What Are Member States Doing?

Member states are taking a variety of approaches to improve the Public Employment Services they offer, and to create a climate for sustainable employment.

In Focus Case Study: UKUnemployment in the UK has risen sharply since 2009, to reach a total of 8.2%. This remains below previous peaks, and is predicted to fall, but the headline rate masks several underlying issues. Youth unemployment, for instance, is far higher at 22%, and the numbers of long-term unemployed and part-time workers have increased. Youths classified as “NEETs” are a particular concern, making up 16% of the under-25s.

The benefits system has already undergone bold reforms. The UK has a united employment service and benefits agency, strong regular contact with jobseekers, means-tested and time-limited contributory benefits, and a policy of increasing interventions the longer the person is looking for work.

The government has introduced three principal innovations in response to the current climate:

•Evaluatinganewflexibleapproachinjobcentres.Thisincludes introducing a flexible fund to help jobseekers take up employment, such as buying new work boots or paying travel costs for interviews, and adopting a flexible signing regime to identify people who may be claiming while working.

• IntroducingtheWorkProgrammeforthoseunemployedfor 12 months or more. This has been contracted out to a mix of private and voluntary sector organisations, on a payment by results basis. Payment is partly funded by savings to government. Higher payments are given to those unemployed who are harder to help. The programme was launched last year, and the first results will be available this autumn.

•Simplifyingthebenefitssystem.From2013,auniversal credit will merge benefits given to those both in work and out of work. It will provide a single view of customer across tax and benefits and includes support for housing, childcare, disabled people and carers. This will remove the distinction between in-work and out-of-work support, making clear the potential gains of being in work.

To address youth unemployment, the UK government has launched the £1bn Youth Contract, which includes incentives to employers to take on young apprentices, work experience places for young people and interviews with the National Careers Service.

Long-term challenges remain, however: sectors that traditionally employ young people are shrinking, and the numbers of long-term unemployed are increasing. There is a concern that cyclical unemployment may become structural, and a worry that EU employment protections are too high, given the international and economic context.

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In Focus Case Study: GermanyGermany has not faced the same labour market problems as many other European countries. Its unemployment rate currently stands at about 6.7%, lower than the pre-crisis rate. In part, this is down to Germany’s dual model, in which young people traditionally take on work with an employer part-time while studying.

Germany’s Public Employment Service, the Bundesagentur fürArbeit(BA),beganaprogrammeofreformin2003.It started by identifying those labour offices that were performing well, and those doing less well, giving targets for those that were underperforming. It also compared its own performance with that of private providers in six different regions in Germany, and found it was doing better than some of the private providers. The current wave of continuing reforms are focused on ‘market innovations’ i.e. looking at international cooperation with other Public Employment Service, benchmarking against leading standards and practices as well as launching pilot projects to address labour demand issues (e.g. triple win migration approach).

In2003,BAlaunchedthefirstphaseofitsvirtuallabourmarket, which has evolved over the last decade and continues to be an effective tool for the agency to ensure jobs-matching and efficient labour market operations. This consists of:

•Anonlinejobportal(Jobboerse)forjobseekersandemployers

•AninternalITsystem(VERBIS)thatmakesiteasiertoschedule assessment appointments and includes a smart search function to link job seekers to employers

• JobRobot–anonlinejob-crawlerthatcollectsjobvacancies from company websites and posts them in the Public Employment Service intranet.

By making it simpler to match supply and demand, the virtual labour market has improved access to the labour market for jobseekers. It has also improved transparency, and made the process of placing jobseekers much more efficient.

BA is now working on a longer-term strategy, built on four main principles:

•Approachingcustomerswheretheyare. This involves expanding the range of channels, including e-government, by which people can access services.

•Offering support for near-market customers that is aligned to their needs. This includes supporting them at home if necessary. BA will develop a personalised labour market monitor, and offer personal support for selected groups of people.

•Offering intensive support for remote market customers. This includes conducting in-depth analysis both of customers’ profiles and the impact of intervention, focusing activity on local networks and developing a best practice exchange.

•Offeringnewservicesforemployers.This involves expanding services for SMEs, providing electronic services for larger employers and developing efficient partnerships with other organisations such as temporary employment agencies. There are separate teams dealing with jobseekers and employers.

Key to accomplishing this will be a strategy that is built on several key pillars: innovation, ensuring it is economical and sustainable, makes strong use of IT and e-services, and uses personnel who are appropriately skilled at dealing with the key shortage areas.

Germany has decided to take an individual, rather than a segmented, approach to placing customers:

1. Identifying clients who may have particular needs, such as lone parents or migrants

2. Creating an individual profile, taking into account factors such as skills, motivation, and personal strengths

3.Developingastrategyforthatindividual

4. For particularly hard-to-place clients, offering more intense contact, and progressing in small steps

Finally, Germany sees international co-operation as an essential part of its labour market strategy, and as it looks to the future its motto is to be ‘active for labour in a world of change’.

What Are Member States Doing?

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In Focus Case Study: ItalyUnemployment in Italy is close to the EU average, at about 9.8%, but youth unemployment is amongst the highest in Europe (29.1%, the seventh highest). Female unemployment and participation in the labour market are also significant issues .

Italy is in the process of drafting a law to address the structural weaknesses of the labour market. The aim is to improve productivity, boost economic growth and increase employment rates. The reform package has been developed based on 4 key guidelines:

•Stability:maintain and enhance the permanent contract as the common form of employment

•Equity: redistribute more equally the employment protection and adapt the regulation for individual dismissal

•Efficiency: more efficient framework of social safety nets and the related active policies

•Efficacy:more effective contrast to the elusive use of tax obligations, contractual and fiscal institutions

The draft law provides measures and actions to achieve a dynamic and inclusive labour market, that can contribute to job creation, social / economic growth and permanent reduction in unemployment. The key areas of interventions are: contract types, flexibility, social safety nets, jobs for women, jobs for the disabled and for immigrants, active policies, and lifelong learning.

The major impacts for INPS, Italian Social Security Agency, introduced by the labour market reform are related to:

•Providingsocialsafetynets:rearrangement and improvement of safeguards in the event of involuntary job loss (ASpI), extension of the protections while continuing to work (CIGO, CIGS, Solidarity Funds), and tools to facilitate corporate crisis management for workers close to retirement.

•AdoptinganewITsystemtocollectandintegrateinformation about active and passive policies, and to monitor the effectiveness of services offered by local offices

•Takingontheroleofemploymentagency,co-ordinatingbetween employers and jobseekers

The new social safety nets will consist of three main pillars:

•Universalsocialinsuranceforemployment

•Protectionwhilecontinuingtowork

•Toolsformanagingstructuralredundancy

The reform of the Italian labour market is in response to long-term domestic demand, and has been welcomed across Europe.

The reform, once fully operational, aims to introduce major changes to address and solve the current structural weaknesses of Italian labour market, generally credited as one of the main reasons why labour productivity in Italy is low and the economy does not grow and create jobs.

The plan aims to make the labour market more flexible overall and significantly reduce the present duality in the market, notably by introducing a universal social safety net.

The draft law is complemented by active labour market policies to help young people into their first job and assist those who lose theirs to find another job rapidly.

What Are Member States Doing?

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In Focus: The Role Of Public Employment Services In The EUIn European countries with high unemployment rates, such as the UK, Spain, Greece, France and Ireland, job creation is at the top of the political agenda.

Before the global economic crisis, European countries tended to have similar approaches to the labour market, with an emphasis on strong public expenditure, the promotion of part time jobs and an increase unemployment allowances.

Since the crisis, policies have diverged. There have been two main models:

• Inclusivity– businesses have decided to keep workers on but to reduce number of hours they work. This is the approach adopted in Germany

•Flexibility – businesses have tended to lay off workers. This is the model adopted in France

Because of the different economic situations, the role of the Public Employment Service varies between countries. There are, however, some common trends:

•Anincreaseinfocusonparticulartargetpopulations,such as young people, older people and under-qualified workers

•AnincreasedemphasisontheroleITcanplayinmatching offers to demands, and in helping develop a multi-channel strategy for helping people to access jobs

Because of the impact of the economic crisis, the role of Public Employment Services is now being re-evaluated throughout Europe, and, as part of the EC’s 2020 strategy framework, the Commission has launched a Public Employment Service declaration with the following key elements:

•Segmentationtoadaptservicestotheneedsofdifferentgroups of unemployed people

• IncreasingtheroleofITtowidenunemployedautonomyand accessibility to Public Employment Services

• IncreasingPublicEmploymentServiceactivitytohelppeople in employment

•Adaptationtolocallabourmarkets

•Moreco-operationwithlocalauthoritiesandNGOs

What Are Member States Doing?

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The Route To Sustainable Employment

Governments now need to take active steps to develop the right conditions for sustainable employment in their countries. These include:

•StimulatingthedemandsidethroughincentivestoSMEs,such as cutting red tape, providing access to finance, business coaching, networking as well as apprenticeship opportunities

•Focusingeffortsonsectorswithpotentialforhighgrowth, such as green energy, healthcare and ICT

•MakingexistingPublicEmploymentServicesmoreeffective. This includes developing IT platforms that will enable a more targeted approach to matching jobseekers to job opportunities, and adopting a multi-agency approach so that the Public Employment Services work with, for example, career specialists to improve jobseekers’ prospects

•Reformingbenefitssystemstoreducetheadministrativeburden on the government and incentivise the unemployed to look for work

• Improvingtheavailabilityandrelevanceofskillstraining,whether through schools, colleges or private providers, and making sure that it is matched to the skills that are in demand

• Improvingtheprospectsofparticularhard-to-helpgroups, such as lone parents, by creating conditions that will enable them to enter the labour force

•Workingwiththegovernmentsofothermemberstatesto improve the conditions for migration across country borders

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Next Steps

The session heard examples of good practice in different member states. While there are similarities in the challenges faced by different governments, there are also differences – there can be no one-size-fits all approach.

European member states face a huge challenge in the coming years. At a time of global economic crisis, they need to halt the growth in unemployment rates and develop policies that will lead to sustainable growth in the labour market. These policies will need to meet head-on the particular challenges of an ageing population, a skills shortage, high youth unemployment and the increasing numbers of long-term unemployed. Successful implementation of these policies requires a multi-pronged approach, co-ordination between agencies, an intelligent, strategic use of IT systems and a more targeted approach to welfare provision.

The session heard examples of good practice in different member states. While there are similarities in the challenges faced by different governments, there are also differences – there can be no one-size-fits all approach. Nonetheless, countries can learn from each other and adapt best practice approaches in a way that meets their particular requirements. Only by devising strategies that take into account the needs of the long term as well as the immediate challenges will governments be successful in developing the conditions necessary for sustainable employment.

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Share Your Views

The Government of the Future Centre Roundtable series is designed to stimulate thought leadership and encourage EU-level debate on current issues and innovative approaches.

We actively encourage your feedback and ideas that will help shape the agendas of future Roundtables. Please do let us know if you have:

•Feedbackonthesustainableemploymenttopic

•Ideasabouthowtoimprovetheformatandstructureofthe Roundtables

•Recommendationsforhottopicsforfuturediscussions

Please contact info@governmentofthefuture.net

We are exploring the possibilities of using social media to keep this community together, and for all of you to be able to follow up with each other on specific areas of interest. We will be in touch shortly with new developments.

Government Of The Future Centre Key ContactsBernard le Masson Global Managing Director, Health and Public Service Management Consulting, Accenture bernard.le.masson@accenture.com

Ann Mettler Executive Director of the Lisbon Council ann.mettler@lisboncouncil.net

Jörg Monar Director of Political and Administrative Studies, College of Europe jorg.monar@coleurope.eu

References1 Source - OECD Employment Outlook 2012

2 Source - Do SMEs create more and better jobs? http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/facts-figures-analysis/performance-review/pdf/do-smes-create-more-and-better-jobs_en.pdf

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About Accenture

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 249,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$25.5 billion for thefiscalyearendedAug.31,2011.Itshomepageiswww.accenture.com.

About The College Of Europe

The College of Europe, founded in 1949 and based in Bruges, Belgium and Natolin, Poland, was the first and is one of the most reputed institutes of European postgraduate studies, which prepares annually up to 400 students from over 50 countries to work and live in an international environment. The European Political and Administrative Studies programme offers a wide range of courses on the functioning and policies of the European Union. Its home page is www.coleurope.eu.

About The Lisbon Council

The Lisbon Council is a Brussels-based think tank and policy network committed to making a positive contribution by engaging political leaders and the public-at-large in a constructive exchange about the economic and social challenges of the 21st century. Incorporated in Belgium as an independent, non-profit and non-partisan association, the Lisbon Council is among Europe’s most authoritative and thoughtful voices on economic modernisation and social renewal. Its home page is www.lisboncouncil.net.

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