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

Will European recovery ever be co-determined by social actors?

Bart Vanhercke and Amy Verdun 14th December 2021

The EU’s plan for recovery offered an opportunity for meaningful involvement of social actors. The outcome? Patchy.

involvement,social partners,civil-society organisations, CSOs,social actors
Civil-society organisations have largely been marginalised in discussion of recovery plans (Alexandros Michailidis / shutterstock.com)

In response to the pandemic, the European Union pledged major financial support to member states. Via the multiannual financial framework and ‘NextGenerationEU’ (NGEU), with its temporary ‘Recovery and Resilience Facility’ (RRF), the EU earmarked €800 billion, for which member states were required to submit national recovery and resilience plans (RRPs). While some reporting templates were invented, others drew on the established procedures of the European Semester, which served as a ‘Goldilocks’ governance option.

To what extent has the new set-up changed the power balance among EU actors in the monitoring of economic and social policies? When the semester was launched in 2011, for instance, there was a bias in favour of financial and economic players. But over time social-institutional actors managed to become involved in its day-to-day operation, ‘socialising’ the semester.

The answers we give to that question are based on EU documents, semi-structured elite interviews and discussions with representatives of the European social partners and civil-society organisations (CSOs), as well as of member states.

Stakeholder consultation

The RRF regulation stipulated that national reforms and investments had to relate to the country-specific recommendations (CSRs) of the semester, the strengthening of growth potential, job creation and economic, social and institutional resilience, and implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights. Effective contribution to the green and digital transitions was also required: expenditure related to climate had to comprise at least 37 per cent of each RRP, digital initiatives 20 per cent. No explicit ‘social’ targets were however included—although the European Commission would be mandated to develop (through delegated regulation) a methodology for reporting social expenditure, including on measures focused on children and young people as well as gender equality.


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 final version of the regulation was a big step forward, at least on paper, regarding stakeholder consultation—so far stipulated only in general terms under the semester as formally set out. As a result of the European Parliament’s first reading, the adopted regulation requires member states not only to provide ‘a summary of the consultation process’ but also to report on ‘how the input of the stakeholders is reflected in the recovery and resilience plan’. In addition to the social partners, the regulation widens stakeholders to include local and regional authorities and CSOs including youth organisations.

In practice, however, the involvement of social actors in the RRF has proved highly problematic: the motto was to act first and consult later.

Crisis mode

The pandemic erupted in March 2020. The EU responded in steps but rapidly, breaking some old taboos. By the summer the European Council had agreed to a massive package. During the autumn policy-makers were still in crisis mode. Many established procedures associated with the semester, such as the country reports and CSRs, were altered or put on hold.

Within the commission, decision-making was centralised in a Recovery and Resilience Task Force (RECOVER) of the Secretariat-General, in close co-operation with the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN). The role of DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (EMPL), previously in the semester’s ‘core group’, was significantly pruned.

As for the Council of the EU, the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs (EPSCO) formation had no say in the recovery being rolled out. Nor did its advisory bodies: the employment (EMCO) and social-protection (SPC) committees.

Drastically reduced

What is more, the usual consultation of a variety of social players was drastically reduced. The social actors, in turn, were very concerned they might be sidelined for a longer period. While the social partners and CSOs were typically included at the outset of the drafting of the RRPs, this engagement was not sustained. Meetings discussed draft plans, sometimes shared in advance, but stakeholders usually did not receive feedback on how their contributions factored into the final plan.

Recent analysis of the involvement of stakeholders in the drafting process by the European Parliament confirms that at least 17 member states engaged in extensive, formal, public consultation when preparing their RRPs, even if this varied greatly. Fewer, however, point to specific proposals from stakeholders reflected in the RRPs. Some countries also reported in their RRP that they had given the public the opportunity to engage in the debate, without revealing anything about the quality of the consultation.

Research forthcoming from Eurofound has assessed the quality of involvement of social partners in these consultations. Fewer than ten member states were given a positive assessment: the Nordic countries, Belgium, Czechia and Spain and (to a lesser extent) Bulgaria, Cyprus and France. All other countries recorded only low-quality social-partner involvement, with deficiencies in the timeliness of, and feedback from, the consultation.


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

Different set-up

At national level, ministers—premiers and ministers responsible for finance and cohesion—have mainly steered RRP decision-making. This stands in stark contrast with previous reform programmes driven largely by officialdom. Because the set-up was different, social partners and CSOs had to develop new national and EU networks—which takes more time than was available.

The lack of detailed requirements for quality consultation on the RRP—its extent and the time allotted, the transparency of the contributions by social actors—combined with the change of national ‘drivers’ severely to limit effective engagement, even in countries with established avenues for consultation under the semester. It remains to be seen whether the ‘social recalibration’ of the RRF objectives obtained by the European Parliament during the negotiations on the regulation has ultimately affected the social quality of the plans. In the absence of quantitative social targets—it seems these were more difficult to agree than green or digital ones—member states appear largely free to choose how much to stake on social reform and investment in their RRP.

When the RRF was launched, due to the desire for quick action, there was a serious risk of the EU’s institutional social actors losing the prominence they had acquired over the years in the context of the semester. DG EMPL, EPSCO and its advisory bodies however gradually reclaimed their position, as the immediacy of the crisis subsided. A longer-term focus emerged, the EU returned to previous semester practices and these players managed to get a foot in the door.

Officials also engaged with the social partners on both sides of industry, but it remains an open question whether this consultation was really meaningful. European CSOs, by contrast, have been sidelined in the RRF process. And in most member states consultation with domestic stakeholders—both social partners and CSOs—has remained insufficient.

Democratising the polity

The European Parliament was reasonably successful in its substantive impact on the RRF regulation. It has since failed, however, to insert itself in the approval and assessment procedures of the recovery programme.

Time will tell whether the EU is ready to seize this opportunity to democratise the polity further and to enhance the inclusion of social actors in these processes. Making ‘soft’ modes of governance harder, including strengthening the role of the European Parliament in oversight of the semester and the RRF, could reinforce democracy and enhance EU legitimacy.

This is part of a series on the National Recovery and Resilience Plans, supported by the Hans Böckler Stiftung

Bart Vanhercke
Bart Vanhercke

Bart Vanhercke is director of the Brussels-based European Social Observatory (OSE) and an associate staff member at the Research Institute for Work and Society (HIVA), KULeuven.

Amy Verdun
Amy Verdun

Amy Verdun is a professor of political science at the University of Victoria—BC Canada, and visiting professor at Leiden University.

You are here: Home / Economy / Will European recovery ever be co-determined by social actors?

Most Popular Posts

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
income inequality,inequality,Gini,1 per cent,elephant chart,elephant Global income inequality: time to revise the elephantBranko Milanovic
Orbán,Hungary,Russia,Putin,sanctions,European Union,EU,European Parliament,commission,funds,funding Time to confront Europe’s rogue state—HungaryStephen Pogány

Most Recent Posts

reality check,EU foreign policy,Russia Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—a reality check for the EUHeidi Mauer, Richard Whitman and Nicholas Wright
permanent EU investment fund,Recovery and Resilience Facility,public investment,RRF Towards a permanent EU investment fundPhilipp Heimberger and Andreas Lichtenberger
sustainability,SDGs,Finland Embedding sustainability in a government programmeJohanna Juselius
social dialogue,social partners Social dialogue must be at the heart of Europe’s futureClaes-Mikael Ståhl
Jacinda Ardern,women,leadership,New Zealand What it means when Jacinda Ardern calls timePeter Davis

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?

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

ETUI advertisement

The EU recovery strategy: a blueprint for a more Social Europe or a house of cards?

This new ETUI paper explores the European Union recovery strategy, with a focus on its potentially transformative aspects vis-à-vis European integration and its implications for the social dimension of the EU’s socio-economic governance. In particular, it reflects on whether the agreed measures provide sufficient safeguards against the spectre of austerity and whether these constitute steps away from treating social and labour policies as mere ‘variables’ of economic growth.


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

The winter issue of the Progressive Post magazine from FEPS is out!

The sequence of recent catastrophes has thrust new words into our vocabulary—'polycrisis', for example, even 'permacrisis'. These challenges have multiple origins, reinforce each other and cannot be tackled individually. But could they also be opportunities for the EU?

This issue offers compelling analyses on the European health union, multilateralism and international co-operation, the state of the union, political alternatives to the narrative imposed by the right and much more!


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