The European Parliament wants the decision-making process for member states’ employment policy guidelines to be improved and for the Council to genuinely take the European Parliament’s opinion into account, according to an own-initiative report by Miroslavs Mitrofanovs (Greens/EFA, Latvia) adopted by a comfortable majority (452 to 156 with 39 abstentions) on Thursday 19 April.
For Council decisions, the European Parliament only has an advisory role, which MEPs see as problematic since their views are too frequently ignored by the member states, explains an EU source.
They therefore insist on the need to ensure a more democratic decision-making process, pointing out that the employment guidelines impact on citizens and job markets across the EU and calling for the Council to take account of MEPs’ views.
The MEPs want Parliament’s employment and social affairs committee (EMPL) to be involved alongside other Council bodies involved in coordinating economic and social policies in monitoring implementation of the guidelines.
A stronger social aspect for some …
In terms of the content of the guidelines, the MEPs stress the need to ensure high-quality jobs emerge and to focus on ‘future’ sectors such as the green economy, the circular economy, healthcare and digital affairs. They also want the member states to ensure a better balance between work and home life, to cut the gaps between men and women (through pay audits) and to strengthen lifelong training.
The MEPs also want retirement pensions to be higher than the poverty level and suggest that increasing the retirement age should be done in strategies that encourage ‘active ageing in good health.’ They suggest that the member states establish periods of contribution for people outside the labour market who are informal carers for another person.
...Wishful thinking for others.
On the left, particularly among the GUE/NGL group, there are MEPs, including shadow rapporteur Patrick Le Hyaric (GUE/NGL, France), who did not back the text because the rapporteur sacrificed the report’s coherence on the altar of compromise, by calling, for example, for the tax burden on labour to be reduced or mentioning increased retirement ages or foreseeing the introduction of structural reforms to boost competitiveness.
Migrants
The EPP tabled a series of amendments with separate votes to rule out the introduction of pay transparency and pay audits to combat gaps between the sexes and to scrap the mention of specific measures of support for migrants or ethnic minorities. The EPP did not manage to get the first amendment through but was successful with the second.
The European Commission unveiled a proposal in November 2017 to amend the member states’ employment guidelines to adjust them to the European social rights legislation (see EUROPE 11907, 11906). The guidelines serve as a basis for drafting country-specific recommendations in the European Semester process of coordination of economic policies. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)