In June the European Council approved the Commission's Country-Specific Recommendations (CSRs), marking the final stage in the third European Semester (see below for further explanation). Analyses of the CSRs by the ETUC and ETUI have highlighted some important trends. While some of the CSRs touch on some positive issues for trade unions such as action to improve gender equality, others remain of major concern - particularly the CSRs relating to wages.
Commission targets wage-setting
An ETUC review of the 2013 Country-Specific Recommendations found eight Member States with a recommendation on wages and/or wage setting systems, in addition to the four countries under a Troika programme where wage interventions are part and parcel of the adjustment programme.
The emphasis is very much on downwards wage flexibility with calls for reforms of wage indexation systems (Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus), pressure on France and Slovenia to reduce minimum wages and
for wage moderation in Denmark and Finland.
The ETUC continues to challenge the European institutions on their interference in national industrial relations and to counter their arguments that wage flexibility and reducing employment protection are the answers to the economic crisis.
CSRs on other social issues
Apart from intervention on wages, an ETUI analysis of the first three years of CSRs uncovered the following trends:
- apparently decreased attention/concern for changes to employment protection legislation - presumably as several countries have implemented labour reforms;
- high and even increasing concern for the employability of older workers and young workers;
- constant and strong focus on pension reform, mainly by increasing the retirement age and phasing out early retirement schemes; and
- repeated insistence on tax reform shifting the tax burden from labour.
Pensions, as with wages, are strictly speaking a national responsibility but this has not stopped the Commission making them one of the most common subjects for the CSRs with calls, in particular, for pension ages to be adjusted upwards as average life expectancy increases.
Tackling inequality
An ETUC analysis of CSRs on equality issues shows that they aim in general to increase women’s participation in the labour market, with the goal of achieving a 75% employment rate by 2020. Recommendations mostly cover the need for increasing the quantity of care facilities (11 countries), followed by removing fiscal disincentives for second earners (3 countries), harmonizing pension ages for both women and men (2 countries), tackling the gender pay gap (1 country) and, finally, promoting flexible working arrangements for women (1 country).
Trade unions would support several elements of these CSRs, although there remains a question as to the consistency of the recommendations and why, for example, only one country as CSR on the gender pay gap.
Missing element - quality of work?
A study by the ETUI looks at the extent to which questions of health and safety and labour inspection feature in the European Semester. In short, these have not been mentioned in any of the 400+ CSRs issued so far, but the ETUI argues that safety and inspection initiatives have been included in a number of National Reform Programmes and that there is a clear need to take account of these issues particularly when the CSRs refer to the need to increasing the participation of women, younger and older workers in the labour market.
The ETUI also points out the importance of calling for action on safety and workplace inspection when in other contexts the Commission is trying to reduce what it claims are "burdensome" regulations, through its REFIT programme and through initiatives by DG Enterprise and Industry that focus on reducing so-called red tape for small employers and creating "business-friendly" public administration.
Note on the European Semester
The European Semester is the annual cycle of policy guidance and surveillance that makes up the process of economic governance.
Beginning with the drafting of the Annual Growth Survey in the autumn and including the alert mechanism to warn of macroeconomic imbalances, the in-depth country reports, the National Reform Programmes, Stability and Convergence Programmes, Country Specific Recommendations and national budgetary assessments.
- Log in to post comments
