(7 March 2017) Speaking at a debate organised by the EESC’s Workers Group, marking the publication of the 17th edition of ‘Social policy in the European Union: state of play’, the General Director of the ETUI Philippe Pochet said that this new edition confirmed that Europe was beset by a series of crisis’ in 2015 and the best way to tackle many of these ongoing crisis would be through strengthening social rights, throughout the European Union. He also said that the new publication clearly established that if EU institutions remain so business orientated then there will be little room for optimism, regarding to the European project.
Maxine Cerutti, Director of Social Affairs, Business Europe told attendees that the publication confirmed that the European Semester process plays an important role in improving the social markets and building more effective social systems which encourages social partnerships.
According to Gabriele Bischoff, President of the EESC, Workers Group, the report strengthens the argument that the European Commission’s social pillar exercise needs to comes up with a set of concrete proposals which promote and encourage negotiations between social partners. This position was reiterated by Esther Lynch, Confederal Secretary of the ETUC.
This edition of Social policy in the European Union: state of play 2016 reports on recent EU and national social policymaking, with contributions from leading scholars pointing to a ‘crisis’ of 2015. In this year, tensions in the EU reached an unprecedented level: the migration crisis showed the EU the limits of its decision-making capacity, economic weakness continued to prevail, austerity policies and the badly handled socioeconomic Greek crisis turned populations against the EU – and then came the Brexit vote.
This book argues that the centrifugal pressures within the EU and the EMU can be handled through a process of managed integration and disintegration. It maintains that the EU’s renewed focus on long-term unemployment is biased towards a ‘jobs first’ approach, contributing to the EU’s Janus-faced approach to the social dimension. It demonstrates that the austerity dogma has led to an erosion of social rights and makes a plea in favour of going ‘back to basics’ with regard to worker’s protection. Reflection and down-to-earth debate on the long-term integration of both EU migrants and refugees is required.
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