Brussels, 29/07/2005 (Agence Europe) - On the occasion of the conference organised on 30 June in Brussels on the theme of solidarity and its significance when it comes to current social protection systems, competition and market forces, the secretary general of the European Association of Paritarian Institutions (AEIP), Bruno Gabellieri, presented a reflection paper on “Solidarity in Social Protection” on behalf of his association. (See EUROPE 8964).
The AEIP, managed by employer and employee representatives and active in the field of social protection and the technical problems that this poses (which differentiates it from the social partners, whose role is more focused on questions of a political kind), has the essential aim of promoting paritarian organisations at European level, concentrating on four fields of activity: - coordinated retirement schemes, pension funds, health insurance and provident benefits (covering occupational injury, disability and death risks), and holiday funds. “Solidarity, transparency and paritarian management are our values. It is important to see what the exact meaning of solidarity is in the way society is currently developing, and especially social protection systems. Solidarity is the main element of the European social model. It is a dynamic concept which pleads a satisfactory legal framework as, so far, it is simply a value. We must go beyond the rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Communities”, Sybille Reichert, AEIP Permanent Representative in Brussels, commented, stressing the important role that social dialogue also plays in ensuring solidarity.
Is it possible to translate solidarity, which is a philosophical and ideological concept, into a legal concept? Yes, Professor Vitor José Melicias Lopes (Uniao das Misericordias Portuguesas) said. For this, however, he believes one must: 1) develop constant action for changing the way people think along the lines of a solidarity “culture”; 2) accelerate the adoption into Community and Member State standards of the right to solidarity and the duty to solidarity as a branch of law with social and humanitarian objectives; 3) stimulate the establishment of instruments (of the pact, protocol, work agreements, paritarian social insurance agreements, etc.) aimed at defending and promoting the legal dimension of solidarity; 4) consolidate the study on the specific nature of the law of solidarity and its relationship to humanitarian law and fundamental social rights; 5) promote close links between the solidarity institutions and the services of general economic interest (economic or otherwise). He went on to conclude that we are entitled to regard solidarity as a universal right that can be exercised. Bernard Devy, AEIP President (and also of ARRCO - complementary retirement scheme for employees, France) explained that solidarity has an economic value as it alleviates risks for the individuals and reaches social objectives that a market cannot attain. He felt solidarity is therefore a concept linked to economic effectiveness. AEIP is also convinced it is possible to adapt new forms of social insurance to solidarity requirements. Solidarity is not opposed to competition and to market forces but is rather an effective complementary approach when the market does not provide optimal results, an AEIP press release explains. Individual responsibility, which has gained importance in recent reforms of social protection schemes across Europe, is not the opposite extreme to solidarity, and solidarity, on the other hand, ,depends on the responsibility of each individual belonging to a group, the press release states. Paritarian management facilitates the implementation of solidarity, it goes on to explain, noting that social partners have the ability to reconcile the EU's social and economic objectives and that the implication of paritarian organisations as stakeholders in Community action plans is therefore indispensable, as foreseen in the strengthened Lisbon strategy.
We recall that, since 2005, AEIP has 21 members from the 15 EU Member States and Switzerland.