Brussels, 01/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - The essence of the EU economic model is a balance between the competitiveness of the European labour market and the social protection of workers. This is the principle that the commissioner-designate for employment, social affairs, skills and workers' mobility, Marianne Thyssen, intends to apply as the thread running through all she does in the new European Commission. During her hearing at the European Parliament's employment and social affairs committee (EMPL) on Wednesday 1 October, she set out her priorities, the tools she wants to utilise and the political and legislative challenges she will have to meet.
In her introduction, after swiftly taking stock of the social situation in the EU (25 million on the dole, including 5 million young people, more than 120 million people threatened by poverty and social exclusion), Thyssen presented four of her priorities, which are of “equal importance”. These priorities were then placed alongside the four policy instruments she has available to her at the Commission to take action. Her main thrust will be to strike a delicate balance between competitiveness and social protection by tackling barriers to job creation and social dumping. “I want tangible results”, she said, because the first goal is to re-establish Europeans' confidence. However, she did not mention any new legislative initiatives in the pipeline.
The first of the four priorities is job creation, with particular attention given to SMEs, which, “require conditions suitable for increasing their customary and innovative activities”. The second seeks to improve access to jobs, particularly for the long-term unemployed, young people without qualifications, senior citizens, people with disabilities and women. The third priority is increasing the level of Europeans' qualifications because “our competitiveness primarily depends upon our skills”. The final priority is to ensure a solid framework for social protection, which is a “key investment for our prosperity”. She also said that social protection systems had, however, to be both “more efficient and more results orientated”.
In order to be able to put these four priorities into practice, Thyssen set out instruments. Her contribution to the investment package (a further €300 billion of public and private investment to stimulate the economy over the next three years) will imean the use of structural funds (European Social Fund, European Aid to the Most Deprived, European Globalisation Adjustment Fund) as a lever for creating jobs. Economic governance as part of the European Semester process will be improved by according more importance to the social indicators and putting them on the same level as the economic indicators, whether this is in the excessive deficit procedure or with regard to country-specific recommendations. She emphasised that she would then set about ensuring that certain “common rules are proportionate” so that they do not constitute a barrier to growth but without “reducing workers' protection”, while other rules could be revised or strengthened. It would also mean making better use of European instruments, such as the youth employment initiative.
Several points were raised by MEPs, above all, the commitment made by the president-elect of the Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, to “initiate targeted revision” of the directive on the posting of workers. While the Social Democrats interpreted this as a wish to immediately revise the implementing directive recently adopted, as well as the basic directive of 1996, their hopes were quickly dashed. Thyssen asserted that she would first of all seek to implement the implementing directive, which she said was too recent to already begin discussions on its revision. She is therefore seeking to scrutinise its application and then begin an assessment of all the provisions involving the question of the posting of workers, but in two years. She said that she was not afraid of opening up this dossier but at the same time there was no question of “questioning the principle of the posting of workers”. With regard to the directive on maternity leave, which is stuck at the Council of the EU, she indicated that it would be necessary to kickstart discussions again but at the same time perhaps reduce the level of ambition, particularly on the amount of leave granted.
On a number of other questions from MEPs, Thyssen indicated that the Commission was not able legally to take action (subsidiarity principle), with regard, for example, to establishing a minimum wage or minimum income in all member states, although she did say that she was personally in favour of these two principles. She also highlighted the work already achieved by her predecessor, such as the youth employment initiative and the Youth Guarantee. The question of workers' mobility in the EU was raised on a number of occasions. The commissioner-designate spoke of “new initiatives to improve the mobility of workers” but did not go into detail. She was particularly keen on defending this mobility as one of the EU's fundamental pillars. In reply to Paul Nuttall (EFDD, United Kingdom) she said that she would not abandon this issue and received a round of applause from the majority of MEPs in response. (JK)