Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar and his British counterpart Tony Blair this week called on EU governments

Date: 03/12/1998

to create jobs through greater deregulation, creating a gulf between themselves and supporters of German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's proposal for a formal EU employment pact. Aznar and Blair said that the EU should “adopt measures directed at the structural needs of the European jobs market”. In Brussels, EU finance and social affairs ministers approved the Commission's 1999 job-creation guidelines, which call for more training and a looser regulatory framework for business.