Brussels, 13/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - "Social Europe is a key problem for European construction", affirmed the former EU Permanent Representative for Belgium, Philippe de Schoutheete, as he opened a seminar on "Social Europe" organised with a view to the Belgian EU Council Presidency by the Belgian European Movement and the Philip Morris Institute. Participants included the Belgian Social Affairs and Pensions Minister Franck Vandenbroucke; MEPs Michel Rocard (Chair of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment) and Miet Smet; the president of the European employers' confederations (UNICE), Georges Jacobs; the General Secretary of the European Trade Union EFFAT (food, agriculture and tourism), Harald Wiedenhofer;, and Professor Bea Cantillon (University of Antwerp/UFSIA). Work made it possible to come to the following conclusions, said Miet Smet, who chaired the sitting: 1) for the first time, social exclusion and poverty could be discussed on the basis of the "open coordination method" at European level, which constitutes a major breakthrough; 2) European social dialogue is not making sufficient progress and the Belgian Presidency will seek to gain in influence; 3) the participants all supported the method of open coordination, the only method valid at technical and political level. Nonetheless, as far as employment is concerned, the limits of such a method have been reached; 4) social development in Eastern Europe does not live up to expectations and the setting in place of trade union and employer delegations is very laborious. Here also, the Belgian Presidency could act to facilitate the process.
Franck Vandenbroucke: social inclusion and sustainability of retirement pensions
Franck Vandenbroucke presented social inclusion and pensions as priorities of the Belgian EU Presidency. He pointed out that the first important task of the Presidency would be to see how progress in social inclusion matters can be measured, "a difficult task without comparative indicators", in the Member States. In his view, in order to make headway, one must take into account the "multi-dimensional aspect of social exclusion and combine the indicators on measures for social inclusion and exclusion". The Belgian Presidency will be organising, in September, a "scientific" conference on this subject. According to Mr Vandenbroucke, the second priority of the Presidency will be to see how to guarantee the sustainability of retirement pensions and "it would be a fine result if, at the end of the Presidency, an open coordination process could be launched", after having set general targets for retirement systems. Finally, concerning the guarantee of social rights for migrant workers in Europe, Franck Vandenbroucke hopes to "come to a political decision under Belgian Presidency, which, among other things, involves reflection on the type of mobility that should take preference within the EU".
Bea Cantillon, for her part, criticised the "jargon" used in the Commission, Council and EP texts, and drew up a negative assessment of European social development, "given the many failed attempts to harmonise social Europe (social security schemes for example)". She recognised that a certain breakthrough had been achieved thanks to the Lisbon Process. This is an historic opportunity that the Belgian Presidency should seize, said Bea Cantillon. In her view, the two challenges of the Belgian Presidency are to try to "strengthen the fragile consensus reached in Nice" on the social Agenda and to give concrete substance to the social indicators.
In his analysis of work relations, Harald Wiedenhofer (trade unions) noted that "a true consultation-information system and open and constructive cooperation increases competitiveness of enterprise, as there is synergy between social progress and economic progress". As for social dialogue, he calls on the Commission to take an initiative to develop this dialogue and calls for the creation of an observatory allowing for change to be anticipated. Georges Jacobs (UNICE) pressed for a European social policy to the service of employment while remarking that "the improvement in the employment situation contained a paradox: the coexistence of a hard core of unemployment and the lack of labour", which is due to erroneous policies that did not take globalisation and technological changes into account as well as the ageing of the population.
The European Trade Union Confederation and UNICE must together define a method for encouraging lifelong training, said Mr Jacobs, who, citing several examples of successful agreements (part-time work, fixed duration contracts), felt that "if it works don't fix it", such as European works councils.
Michel Rocard: contradictions in social matters
"Things in Europe take time, and in social Europe also", stated Michel Rocard, who feels that the evaluation of social Europe gives a gloomy picture despite certain positive aspects such as the conjunction of strong economic growth and a new political determination (full employment, the conviction that social policy is a factor of production and coordination between economic and social policies at European level with a very high level objective: spring summits)". Noting that "in social matters there is a summit before Nice and one after Nice", Michel Rocard said that Nice has allowed considerable breakthroughs, but that the European Council has refused instruments that allow them to be implemented (he spoke of the total institutional blocking on social issues). By way of conclusion, Michel Rocard noted that, in future, the EU will have to face internal challenges (reconciling safety of workers and flexibility, coordinating economic and social policies, really integrating social concerns in competition policy, etc.) and external challenges (displacement of workers during the next EU enlargement, adoption of EU acquis by the applicant states, etc.).