Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

EU credibility as a people’s union rests on the social pillar

Liina Carr 24th February 2021

Buffeted by the pandemic and by populism, the EU needs the European Pillar of Social Rights to become a solid anchor of security for all.

European Pillar of Social Rights,social pillar
Liina Carr

Next week, the European Commission is set to unveil its Action Plan for putting the European Pillar of Social Rights into practice. The European Trade Union Confederation is pressing hard for an ambitious plan, which provides the means to achieve and monitor tangible social progress.

The EPSR was adopted by member states in 2017 but—partly due to the social and economic damage inflicted by the pandemic—European citizens might be forgiven for wondering what difference it has made to their lives. It was the former commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, who announced the initiative in his 2015 State of the Union address. The text was finally proclaimed by European Union leaders at the Social Summit in Gothenburg.

The ETUC played a major role in developing its 20 principles, which we see as crucial to strengthening the EU’s social dimension—ensuring that the welfare of workers and their families is not subordinated to the economic interests of the single market.

Legal force lacking

Despite its legalistic language, the pillar however lacks legal force: the principles do not give direct rights to any individual. It has been described as an agenda, ‘a compass for a renewed process of upward convergence towards better working and living conditions in Europe’.


Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content. We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Sign up here

The ETUC sees it as a guiding strategic framework, enabling the commission to bring forward legislation and other initiatives to strengthen social wellbeing. But at a time when the EU is under intense scrutiny for its handling of the Covid-19 crisis, implementing the pillar in a way that touches people’s lives is a question of credibility for European institutions and member-state governments in the eyes of their citizens. There is no time to waste.

The ETUC has laid out its full expectations on a dedicated website. The EPSR must lead to long-awaited improvements, with upward convergence across the EU on labour rights, working conditions, wages and social-protection systems. It needs to deliver on the promises of strengthening social dialogue, collective bargaining and workplace democracy. Above all, it must be an integral part of the EU’s broad, post-pandemic recovery strategy.

The ETUC fought hard to get the pillar included as one of the main criteria for evaluating eligible investments under the Recovery and Resilience Facility regulation. This is vital, since green and digital investments have numerical targets set by member states, but this approach has not been applied in the social domain. Social objectives must be at the heart of the EU’s recovery plan, and social dialogue and consultation with trade unions must be a cornerstone of future action.

Women worst affected

The first priority in the wake of the pandemic will be to preserve jobs. The Action Plan should ensure that emergency measures to protect workers during the crisis continue for as long as necessary and cover all those affected, including precarious and self-employed workers. It should take account of the fact that women have been worst affected by the pandemic, because of the jobs they fill and their additional responsibilities at home. It should provide special support for younger workers, who have suffered disproportionately as a result of Covid-19.  

The ETUC has listed 12 priorities to kick-start progress towards a fairer and better society as Europe emerges from the pandemic, including ten urgent, ‘flagship’ initiatives. A number of these will require EU legislation to be effective.

For example, the long-awaited directive on gender-pay transparency is vital to counter the unfairness of women and men doing jobs of equal value but women receiving lower wages. As more and more people are likely to continue working digitally from home even when the pandemic subsides, the legal ‘right to disconnect’—recently backed by MEPS—is needed to achieve better work-life balance and avoid the stress of 24-hour availability. We also want to see further action to limit dangerous carcinogens or mutagens in the workplace: nobody should be exposed to life-threatening chemicals at work or die doing their job.

Fair transitions

The Recovery and Resilience Facility focuses on preparing European economies and societies for ‘the challenges and opportunities of the green and digital transitions’. The social pillar must guarantee that those transitions are fair for workers and their families.

That means, among other things, investment in education, skills and training at all levels. Students hit by school closures must have the digital equipment and support to ensure their life-chances are not permanently damaged, and lifelong learning should be a universal right to enable workers to adapt to changing conditions.


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

The Action Plan needs sufficient funding to achieve its ends and it is in the interests of companies and investors to play their part. The EU should also be allowed to raise resources for the recovery on financial markets, as it did for the SURE employment-support programme.

High-level commitment

The list of priorities for the Action Plan does not stop there. But what Europe needs now is high-level political commitment to social objectives, to be achieved through setting and monitoring goals and indicators at every level, in co-operation with trade unions and employers (as social partners) and forming a key component in the European Semester.

In the post-pandemic era, the pillar should work towards a better and broader economic and social governance, which builds sustainable growth and wellbeing for all. Ideally, we want the pillar to be incorporated in the EU treaties, to reorientate the fiscal compass, so that the EU can become a real social-market economy as the treaties affirm.

In the meantime, the ETUC is involving its members in reaching out to promote the EPSR and explain the relevance of the Action Plan to workers across Europe. We want people to take ownership of the next steps so that the European Pillar of Social Rights is no longer an abstract ideal but a practical roadmap to a fairer society.

The ETUC is also building alliances with supportive institutions, governments and stakeholders, to ensure that an ambitious declaration will be adopted at the EU Social Summit in Porto in May, with all institutions and social partners committed to sound and effective implementation.

This column is sponsored by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).
Liina Carr

Liina Carr was re-elected confederal secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation at the ETUC Congress in 2019.

You are here: Home / Society / EU credibility as a people’s union rests on the social pillar

Most Popular Posts

European civil war,iron curtain,NATO,Ukraine,Gorbachev The new European civil warGuido Montani
Visentini,ITUC,Qatar,Fight Impunity,50,000 Visentini, ‘Fight Impunity’, the ITUC and QatarFrank Hoffer
Russian soldiers' mothers,war,Ukraine The Ukraine war and Russian soldiers’ mothersJennifer Mathers and Natasha Danilova
IGU,documents,International Gas Union,lobby,lobbying,sustainable finance taxonomy,green gas,EU,COP ‘Gaslighting’ Europe on fossil fuelsFaye Holder
Schengen,Fortress Europe,Romania,Bulgaria Romania and Bulgaria stuck in EU’s second tierMagdalena Ulceluse

Most Recent Posts

HMPs,CMR,hazardous medicinal products,carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic,health workers Protecting health workers from hazardous productsIan Lindsley, Tony Musu and Adam Rogalewski
geopolitical,Europe Options for Europe’s ‘geopolitical’ futureJon Bloomfield
democracy,democratic Reviving democracy in a fragmented EuropeSusanne Wixforth and Kaoutar Haddouti
EU social agenda,social investment,social protection EU social agenda beyond 2024—no time to wasteFrank Vandenbroucke
pension reform,Germany,Lindner Pension reform in Germany—a market solution?Fabian Mushövel and Nicholas Barr

Other Social Europe Publications

front cover scaled Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis
sere12 1 RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?

ETUI advertisement

Social policy in the European Union: state of play 2022

Since 2000, the annual Bilan social volume has been analysing the state of play of social policy in the European Union during the preceding year, the better to forecast developments in the new one. Co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), the new edition is no exception. In the context of multiple crises, the authors find that social policies gained in ambition in 2022. At the same time, the new EU economic framework, expected for 2023, should be made compatible with achieving the EU’s social and ‘green’ objectives. Finally, they raise the question whether the EU Social Imbalances Procedure and Open Strategic Autonomy paradigm could provide windows of opportunity to sustain the EU’s social ambition in the long run.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound webinar: Making telework work for everyone

Since 2020 more European workers and managers have enjoyed greater flexibility and autonomy in work and are reporting their preference for hybrid working. Also driven by technological developments and structural changes in employment, organisations are now integrating telework more permanently into their workplace.

To reflect on these shifts, on 6 December Eurofound researchers Oscar Vargas and John Hurley explored the challenges and opportunities of the surge in telework, as well as the overall growth of telework and teleworkable jobs in the EU and what this means for workers, managers, companies and policymakers.


WATCH THE WEBINAR HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Discover the new FEPS Progressive Yearbook and what 2023 has in store for us!

The Progressive Yearbook focuses on transversal European issues that have left a mark on 2022, delivering insightful future-oriented analysis for the new year. It counts on renowned authors' contributions, including academics, politicians and analysts. This fourth edition is published in a time of war and, therefore, it mostly looks at the conflict itself, the actors involved and the implications for Europe.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ILO advertisement

Global Wage Report 2022-23: The impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power

The International Labour Organization's Global Wage Report is a key reference on wages and wage inequality for the academic community and policy-makers around the world.

This eighth edition of the report, The Impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power, examines the evolution of real wages, giving a unique picture of wage trends globally and by region. The report includes evidence on how wages have evolved through the COVID-19 crisis as well as how the current inflationary context is biting into real wage growth in most regions of the world. The report shows that for the first time in the 21st century real wage growth has fallen to negative values while, at the same time, the gap between real productivity growth and real wage growth continues to widen.

The report analysis the evolution of the real total wage bill from 2019 to 2022 to show how its different components—employment, nominal wages and inflation—have changed during the COVID-19 crisis and, more recently, during the cost-of-living crisis. The decomposition of the total wage bill, and its evolution, is shown for all wage employees and distinguishes between women and men. The report also looks at changes in wage inequality and the gender pay gap to reveal how COVID-19 may have contributed to increasing income inequality in different regions of the world. Together, the empirical evidence in the report becomes the backbone of a policy discussion that could play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the different ongoing crises.


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube