Policies
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs
- 1. Social aspects of the Lisbon Treaty
- 2. Current tools and initiatives
- 3. Achievements so far
- 4. Shaping the climate of opinions
- 5. European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion (2010)
1. Social aspects of the Lisbon Treaty
In the field of employment and social affairs, the Lisbon Treaty consolidates existing competences.
With the Lisbon Treaty, the Charter of Fundamental Rights acquires the same legal value as the Treaties. The Charter, in addition to conventional rights and liberties, proclaims many social rights: freedom to choose an occupation and right to engage in work; workers' right to be informed of and consulted on decisions made by the management of a company; right of collective bargaining and action; protection in the event of unjustified dismissal. These rights will have a binding legal force since they will be guaranteed by national and community jurisdictions.
The Lisbon Treaty attributes new social objectives to the European Union. The new article 3 aims at working "for the sustainable development of Europe based on a highly competitive social market economy". It also pushes forward full employment and social progress, the fight against social exclusion and discrimination, the promotion of justice, the eradication of poverty. It explicitly puts social objectives and economic objectives at the same level.
Furthermore, the Lisbon Treaty also confirms the role of social partners and enhances social dialogue between trade union representatives and employers' organisations at the European level.
Finally, the new Treaty also brings some innovations in the areas of EU competences. In line with the new article 4§2 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, social policy will become a shared competence of the EU and the Member States. Furthermore, the EU, by defining guidelines, will be able to take measures to ensure coordination of Member State employment policies. Moreover, it will have the option of taking initiatives to ensure coordination of the social policies of Member States (article 5§§1-2).
2. Current tools and initiatives
2.1. European Social Fund
Stimulating growth and job creation is of vital importance at the current time of economic crisis. We observe a significant slowdown in growth, and European companies - particularly SMEs, the main providers of employment and engines of growth in Europe – are facing increasing financial difficulties. The ESF fund can indirectly help to address these difficulties and respond to the financial crisis
Founded by the Treaty of Rome in 1957 (see articles 146-148 CE), the European Social Fund (ESF) is the oldest of the EU Structural Funds. This financial instrument was set up to reduce differences in prosperity and living standards across EU Member States and regions. It aims to promote economic and social cohesion and support employment by helping people to improve their education and skills and therefore their job prospects. Over the period 2007-2013, some €75 billion will be distributed from the ESF. The funding will be provided to the Member States and regions, in particular those where economic development is less advanced.
The EPP Group strongly supports the actions of the ESF. It believes in the need for a greater solidarity between the Member States as part of cohesion policy. It proposes enhancing solidarity in the working environment and promoting the founding values of the European social model. The EPP Group believes in a balanced territorial development and advocates an ambitious territorial cohesion policy. Aimed to ensure the prosperity and well-being of Europeans, the EPP Group supports the Strategy for Growth and Jobs.
2.2. European Globalisation Fund
The opening of economies to international competition brings new opportunities in terms of competitiveness and the creation of high-quality jobs. Trade liberalisation can also have consequences for the least qualified workers in some sectors and areas of the European Union.
The European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF), created in 2006, is a new instrument which demonstrates the EU's solidarity to workers who have been made redundant as a result of globalisation. It aims to help those people so they can either remain in employment or find a new job quickly. The EGF can fund active labour market measures such as: job-search assistance; entrepreneurial support, including micro-credit; new ICT skills and other forms of training. Its actions complement the support provided by the Member States at national, regional and local level. The Fund can intervene only in cases where redundancies have a significant impact on a region or a sector. As economic disruption can occur in all Member States, the interventions of the EGF are available to workers in all EU countries.
The EPP Group succeeded in changing the conditions of the EGF, so that it can now be employed for 500 redundancies (against 1,000 previously), if that prevents major problems in employment and local economies. Furthermore we ensured that assistance to workers can also be given through micro-credit and company takeovers, financial incentives for older workers and that 15% of EGF funds could be used for redundancies in smaller labour markets.
2.3. PROGRESS Programme
The European Union has an important role to play in the development of a modern, innovative and sustainable European Social Model with more and better jobs in an inclusive society based on equal opportunities. Article 2 of the Treaty states that the Community shall have as part of its tasks that of: promoting a high level of employment and of social protection, raising standards of living and quality of life throughout the Community and economic and social cohesion.
In order to achieve these general objectives, it was decided to establish a Framework programme split into 5 sections, corresponding to specific objectives relating to employment, social protection and inclusion, working conditions, antidiscrimination and diversity and gender equality. The EPP-ED Group successfully ensured that 20% of the total costs of the programme had to be raised by the organisers themselves, to provide the programmes relevance and to increase the total budget of the Community PROGRESS Programme.
2.4. PROGRESS Microfinance Facility
The impact of the current crisis on the European economy and financial activity is considerable. Unemployment is rising and many SMEs are in a critical situation. The EPP is looking for concrete solutions which would have an immediate impact for European citizens who have difficulties entering the labour market.
With the aim of alleviating the social impact of the crisis, the European Commission proposed a new instrument, the European Microfinance Facility for Employment and Social Inclusion (Progress Microfinance Facility). The EPP Group traditionally advocates entrepreneurship initiatives and measures promoting freedom of enterprise. It strongly supports this new proposal and calls for €50 million more than the original Commission proposal.
'Microfinance' refers to micro-credit and risk-sharing coverage, 'micro-credit' being defined as loans under €25,000 and 'micro-enterprise' as an enterprise employing less than 10 people. This new instrument offers new opportunities to unemployed people and opens the road to entrepreneurship by providing risk-sharing instruments, debt and equity financing. The Microfinance Facility will support national efforts to increase the supply of micro-credit within a reasonable time.
3. Achievements so far
3.1. Directive on temporary agency work
The purpose of this Directive is to ensure the protection of temporary agency workers and to improve the quality of temporary agency work by ensuring that the principle of equal treatment is applied to temporary agency workers, and by recognising temporary-work agencies as employers, while taking into account the need to establish a suitable framework for the use of temporary agency work with a view to contributing effectively to the creation of jobs and to the development of flexible forms of work. The EPP-ED Group managed to set the rules and conditions for the basic working and employment conditions of temporary agency workers. These would apply for the duration of their assignment at a company - if they had been recruited directly by that undertaking to occupy the same job - provided that an exemption can be made to the principle where temporary agency workers who have a permanent contract of employment with a temporary-work agency continue to be paid in the time between assignments. The Parliament overruled the amendments with a large majority and adopted the recommendation of the Council.
3.2. European qualifications framework
Under the leadership of the EPP-ED Group, the European Parliament adopted a Recommendation on a European Qualifications Framework. The European Qualifications Framework links educational reference frameworks enabling educational and vocational training qualifications to be recognised, compared and transferred. It increases the transparency of procedures, the mutual recognition of national systems and helps learner mobility. Furthermore it improves links between university education and employment, and between formal, non-formal and informal learning and therefore improves transparency and improves portability and recognition of qualifications and competences.
4. Shaping the climate of opinions
4.1. Towards a European Social Model
A uniform ESM does not exist; there is a difference between Nordic, Anglo-Saxon, continental and Mediterranean models. What they all share, however, are common values: equality, solidarity, universal access to education and health care, and a variety of other public services seen as the right of citizens and as essential to creating the basis for a successful modern economy and a fair society. Nevertheless the EPP Group highlights the need to modernise and enhance the existing social models. Alongside the values already mentioned the EPP Group stresses the principles of individual responsibility and non-discrimination. Furthermore, while it is acknowledged that employment and social policy will remain broadly within the national sphere, there is a need for the European Union to create an economic and social framework for social models. The Group calls for full implementation of the internal market and the Lisbon strategy road map, for support for the formation of small and medium enterprises and deeper cooperation through an enhanced open method of coordination.
4.2. Flexicurity
Flexicurity aims at ensuring that EU citizens can enjoy a high level of employment security, i.e. the opportunity to easily find a job at every stage of their working life and a good prospect for career development in a quickly changing economic environment. The aim is to create a situation in which security and flexibility can reinforce each other.
The EPP Group stands for a balance between flexibility and security and therefore opposes the socialist idea, which includes only enhancing security through workplace guarantees and full-time job contracts. The EPP Group advocates 'flexicurity' - flexible and reliable contractual arrangements based on: modern labour laws, collective agreements and work organisation, comprehensive lifelong learning strategies to ensure the continual adaptability and employability of workers, effective active labour market policies that help people cope with rapid change, reduction of unemployment spells and easing of transitions to new jobs, modern social security systems that provide adequate income support, encouraging employment and facilitating labour market mobility. By bringing fresh ideas, the EPP-ED Group provided the major input to the Council for establishing a 'Mission for Flexicurity' and for settling common principles on flexicurity in order to help Member States.
4.3. Preventing social exclusion
One of the EPP Group priorities is the social inclusion and social protection of all European citizens. The EPP Group cannot accept that more than 72 million European citizens are at risk of poverty. EPP Group members in the Committee of Employment and Social Affairs address social protection and social inclusion issues by promoting greater social cohesion, interaction between jobs and growth and the role of social partners and governance. Four own-initiative reports where written on this issue between 2004 and 2008. The EPP Group calls for initiatives to be taken to prevent the transmission of poverty from one generation to the other, to prevent child poverty, to address housing exclusion and homelessness, to increase labour market participation of people with disabilities and to promote healthcare and long-term care. In order to achieve these goals, the EPP Group considers it crucial that all European citizens have a solid general education and vocational training and believes that the levels of pupils leaving school early needs to be reduced as much as possible.
4.4. Community Strategy on Health and Safety at Work
Health and safety at work is one of the most advanced areas of EU policy in the field of employment and social affairs, and that policy has led to a significant drop in the number of accidents at work. The principal aim of this Community initiative is to maintain an ongoing, sustainable and uniform reduction in accidents at work and occupational illnesses. The Commission believes that this programme will reduce the incidence of accidents at work by 25%. The EPP-ED Group ensured that the Commission's draft focuses on taking more account of the effect of demographic change on health and safety, conducting research into workplace stress and resulting illnesses, increasing the number of inspectors and concentrating on vulnerable groups.
4.5. New partnership in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
CSR, as established by a Multi-Stakeholder Forum on CSR founded in 2002, is a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis.
The EPP Group rejects the idea, proposed by left-wing parties, of making CSR mandatory. It believes that voluntary CSR could considerably help address the challenges resulting from globalisation. It could notably help to preserve the key principles of the European social model, such as non-discrimination, social inclusion and equal opportunity for all, through the reconciliation of family and professional life and by focusing on a healthy and safe environment.
The Group encourages all companies to seek ways of contributing to reaching the EU objectives of prosperity, solidarity and long-term security and of promoting different European values.
4.6. Demographic Challenges and Solidarity
The report on Demographic Challenges and Solidarity between generations deals with the problematic of demographic changes which are caused by various factors. On one side economic, social and medical progress gives Europeans the opportunity to live longer lives; on the other both the number of children per woman and fertility is decreasing. We are aware that immigration alone cannot be a solution for Europe in dealing with its demographic decline.
In this regard the EPP Group calls on the Commission, the Council and the Member States to recall that working and family life need to be better reconciled and that the opportunities for life-long learning, childcare and care of the elderly need to be improved. The Group encourages companies to allow flexible working time arrangements for parents with children. Furthermore the Group fights to eliminate age discrimination, to develop active aging policies, and to ensure adequate social protection for all.
5. European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion (2010)
Under the leadership of the EPP Group the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion (2010) was adopted at first reading. The aim of the European Year is to reaffirm the EU's commitment to solidarity and social justice. It focuses on fighting child poverty and the intergenerational transmission of poverty. The EPP Group has ensured that special attention also be paid to large families, single parents, families caring for a dependent person, and children in institutions, involving not only decision-makers but also public and private actors. The European Year should promote the objectives of the EU, particularly with regard to the Lisbon strategy for growth and jobs, by making a decisive impact on the eradication of poverty and contributing to a sustainable development strategy. The EU will provide €17 million for events, information campaigns and studies in the course of the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion - the highest amount ever granted to a European Year.
