The Romanian Presidency of the EU Council intends to consult Ministers at the next Competitiveness Council on 15 March on the social dimension of the European Union for the period after 2020, in preparation for the Summit on the future of the European Union in Sibiu, Romania, on 9 May 2019.
The Romanian Presidency recalls the objectives of the EUROPE 2020 strategy and underlines at the outset in its document the persistence of disparities between Member States and social and economic imbalances that could ultimately “undermine” social and economic convergence. These are all “potential sources” of economic and political instability in “all Member States”, according to the Presidency, for whom it is necessary to “strengthen Europe's social dimension” and to build on the European Pillar of Social Rights (see EUROPE 11907, 11906).
On this basis, the Presidency wishes to structure the debate around two questions, one on the “most salient aspects” that this social dimension of Europe should have after 2020, the other on the priority actions to be taken at European and Member State level to “preserve” or even “improve” the European social model.
In addition, ministers will be invited to discuss the social dimension of the 2019 'European Semester' budget process in relation to the European Pillar of Social Rights and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
Here, the Presidency will seek to determine actions relating to the social pillar in order to link employment policies more closely with those of social protection. At the same time, the Presidency hopes to survey Member States on the need to develop new instruments at European level to strengthen national and local initiatives to make growth more inclusive. Finally, with regard to the cycles of the 'European Semester', the Presidency will seek to determine with the Ministers the reforms to be undertaken in order to combat unemployment “in an effective manner”.
Discussions between ministers at lunch will focus on 'developing adult skills' in response to the challenges of digitisation, automation and robotisation of the labour market, as well as the rise of artificial intelligence. On this basis, the Presidency will ask Ministers what forms European cooperation could take to strengthen adult learning in order to meet the need for an increasingly changing labour market. It will seek to clarify how to better articulate European and national funding and target key partners to strengthen the training of European workers.
On this occasion, the ministers will adopt the 2019 Joint Employment Report (see EUROPE 12201). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)