The Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, Marianne Thyssen, confirmed to EUROPE on Wednesday 8 May the day before the Sibiu European Summit that she would not withdraw the draft regulation on the coordination of social security systems, despite the recent failure of interinstitutional negotiations.
“We are not going to withdraw the proposal”, the Commissioner said. She pointed out that this text was one of ten key pieces of legislation that had not been finalised within the framework of the outgoing European Parliament.
The Commissioner highlighted the quality of the agreement reached between the European Parliament and the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU (see EUROPE 12217/5) and does not intend to bury the work done so far.
She also criticised at times the lack of knowledge and seriousness of some negotiators during the talks. “There have been some problems here and there. But that was not always clear what were really the problems, because, sometimes, there was a lack of knowledge. Sometimes I said to the people, ‘Sorry, but read the text!’”
Mrs Thyssen thus confirmed that she would continue working with the European Parliament, which will emerge from the polls at the end of May once it is operational. “We, together with the presidency [of the Council of the EU], with the Commission, and the newly elected European Parliament, we have to see what we can do. But we have to deliver! We have to!” she said.
And the Commissioner added, “It’s about fair labour mobility. We have labour law with the posted workers directive and then we have the [European Labour Authority], to make sure that the law is applied. But we need also modernised rules on coordination of social security systems, as social security belongs to the ELA tasks.”
Asked about the allegations of Sven Schulze (EPP, Germany) that the European Commission submitted its legislative proposal too late, the Commissioner took issue with it: “I sent a letter to Mr Schulze to tell him that he may have a different opinion, whether it is a good proposal or not. But I do not accept that he would say that we were too late. We presented our proposal two and a half years before – in the middle of the mandate!”
The Commissioner also noted that the European Parliament had only adopted its negotiating position at the end of 2018 (see EUROPE B12225B15), a step that finally left only 2 months to conduct interinstitutional negotiations with Member States.
Independent. The Commissioner also clarified the European Commission's position on the issue of the self-employed. Some unions believe that the European institution has lacked ambition by proposing only non-binding recommendations on the situation of these workers.
“We do not have so much competences in that field. If we are going to send you a directive, it would have been an empty directive a little bit, because we cannot harmonise social security systems.”, she said, adding that the EU can only act in the field of coordinating social security systems.
For a minimum wage in the EU. Mrs Thyssen also pointed out that the European Commission had always been in favour of an income and a minimum wage throughout Europe, stressing that this is one of the priorities of the European pillar of social rights.
This proposal is not included in the European People's Party programme, to which the Commissioner subscribes, for the European elections (see EUROPE 12250/9).
Sibiu. On the Sibiu Summit on the future of the Twenty-Seven (see EUROPE 12251/1), Mrs Thyssen reiterated that the aim of the Summit was not to have a detailed plan of actions to be taken in the coming years, but to have an agreement “at the highest level” on the main principles.
“I think it's better that way. [First], we have to wait for the result of the European elections. We have to see where the people will put the cursor”, she said.
At the beginning of April, Mrs Thyssen made a first assessment of her mandate (see EUROPE 12233/2). (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau and Pascal Hansens)