The European Commission’s draft initiative to move from unanimity to qualified majority voting in the Council for certain areas of social policy seems to clearly divide employers’ and economic organisations on the one hand, and civil society organisations (mainly trade unions and NGOs) on the other, which participated in the public consultation open until 24 January.
Through a non-legislative initiative, the European Commission plans to extend the use of qualified majority voting to a number of social policy areas (in particular social security, protection of workers in the event of termination of contract, or discrimination), which are currently submitted unanimously to the Council, using the “bridging clauses”. These bridging clauses make it possible to switch the areas in which decisions are taken unanimously in the Council to the ordinary legislative procedure, i.e. by qualified majority. The objective is to enable the European Union to legislate more effectively in the field of social policy.
However, according to initial feedback, the proposal would clearly not be unanimously accepted. On the one hand, representatives of the economic sector and employers’ organisations reject this initiative and ask the EU not to interfere in the social systems of the Member States.
Thus, for the Swedish Construction Federation, the EU must respect the great diversity of Member States’ social policy traditions, as well as the structure of national labour relations and social protection systems, and must not under any circumstances “further pressure for harmonisation and standardisation”. The same is true of the Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers, which considers that “the EU should not interfere in national social systems, national issues and competences”.
On the contrary, civil society organisations support this initiative, which they believe would strengthen the social dimension of the EU and European democracy. “Moving on to QMV and the ordinary legislative procedure in social policy would also respond to the need [...] long advocated by trade unions to complement the advanced economic integration and the completion of the EU single market with a real social dimension which responds to permanently evolving realities on the labour market”, says the European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI).
The public consultation is open from 20 December 2018 to 24 January 2019. On the basis of the results obtained, the Commission will decide whether to present a communication in the first quarter of 2019. It should be noted that the Commission has already presented a similar communication – suggesting a move from unanimity to qualified majority – in the field of taxation (see EUROPE 12172) and in the field of common foreign and security policy (see EUROPE 12094). (Original version in French by Damien Genicot – intern)