On Friday 20 January, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe (COE), Thorbjørn Jagland, responded to the “European Pillar of Social Rights” project the different European bodies are working on.
According to Mr Jagland, the European Social Charter – promulgated by the COE in 1961 and revised in 1966 – should be formally included in this pillar as a binding instrument.
This opinion is based on the Memorandum of Understanding between the EU and the COE signed in Strasbourg in May 2007 in an effort to determine the terms of cooperation between the two organisations, optimise the respective expertise and skills of the two organisations, as well as create synergies.
The EU is committed to it and considers the COE as a pan-European source of reference on human rights, of which social rights are a part, explained Thorbjørn Jagland.
He acknowledged that EU member states retain priority scope in determining their social and employment policies but pointed out, however, that although all member states, namely, the EU28, are now signatories to the European Social Charter, they fulfil their obligations variety of different ways.
Including this in the future European Pillar of Social Rights would therefore promote Community harmonisation and clarification of the general principles of Union law, which would be useful for the European Court of Justice.
This will be debated during a conference in Brussels on Monday 23 January. Mr Jagland will participate in this meeting, as will the Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, Marianne Thyssen and Maria João Rodrigues (S&D, Portugal), whose report was adopted on Thursday by the European Parliament (see EUROPE 11707). (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)