On Thursday 14 December, heads of state and government adopted the conclusions on the social dimension, education and culture. This effectively formalises the discussions held in this regard at the Social Summit in Gothenburg last November. The heads of state and government also made a commitment to regularly return to the subject of the social dimension, particularly in March and June 2018.
During his joint press conference with the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, the French President, Emmanuel Macron stated that, “We repeated our commitment in the social arena following Gothenburg with two review clauses, one in March 2018 and the other in June 2018”. He then made a reference to a similar dynamic in the climate domain and welcomed the fact that, “This is the first time that the Council has decided with so much regularity to tackle subjects relating to social convergence, within the Council body, which appears extremely important to me".
The provisional conclusions in their version of 13 December have been amended to this effect and now call on the European Council to return to all the subjects mentioned in the conclusions, as reported by EUROPE earlier this week (see EUROPE 11925). Nonetheless, the June meeting is not contained within these conclusions. Leo Varadkar, the Irish Minister, explained that the European Commission should return in June with new proposals to implement the commitments made during the social summit at Gothenburg in November last (see EUROPE 11907,11906). Several heads of state and government asserted that there had been a real consensus among the member states to strengthen the European pillar of social rights.
Macron welcomed the fact that the proposals on education highlighted during his speech last September at the Sorbonne had been retained in the conclusions. One diplomatic source informed EUROPE that the creation of European universities and the implementation of a similar process to the Bologna process for secondary education figured in the speech by the French President.
Posted workers. The French President and the new Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, held a meeting on Friday morning 15 December and discussed the question of the directive on posted workers, which is currently the subject of inter-institutional negotiations (see other article). During their talks, the French President again highlighted the need to enhance bilateral cooperation between Poland and France in an effort to tackle fraud and irregularities involved in the area of posted workers, in addition to what had been decided at a European level at the end of the inter-institutional negotiations. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)