Brussels, 12/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - By trying to promote values dear to the European Commission like solidarity, transparency and social policy based on negotiation, AEIP is pro-actively defending my own vision of social Europe, said Commissioner Vladimir Spidla at the tenth anniversary of the 'Association européenne des Institutions Paritaires de Protection Sociale' (AEIP, a European association of paritarian social protection institutions, see EUROPE No.9251). Spidla gave three concrete examples of AEIP's constructive participation at EU level, namely: (1) as a member of the Pensions Forum, AEIP submitted a constructively critical contribution to the draft directive making complementary pension rights more transferrable; (2) for the 2003 directive on occupational pensions institutions, AEIP brought up the interpretation of national labour legislation. Spidla said he obviously backed the establishmen t of pan-European pension funds but recognises that they had to be set up in full respect of the applicable social and labour law; (3) AEIP's ideas on solidarity in social welfare systems match the focus of the Commission's activities, particularly in the framework of the Open Coordination Method for social welfare (pensions, healthcare and long-term care), and also with regard to social services of general interest. Vladimir Spidla said he was sure the Commission would be able to continue to benefit from AEIP's contribution in the future to continue to adapt the European social model. He outlined the big challenges facing the EU - globalisation and demographic and technological change. Among the values that citizens want to see preserved, he first mentioned preserving accessible, viable and high quality social protection systems. In order to update social protection systems, Spidla suggested two closely related lines of thought, namely rationa lising the Open Coordination Method and boosting the social dimension of the Lisbon Strategy. Boosting the social coordinatoin process's contribution to the Lisbon Strategy means developing the active side of social protection in a way that counters the arguments of people who see is as just a luxury, expenditure only the rich countries can afford, said Spidla. But boosting the coordination of social policies among one another is no less important, he added, as the question of the effectiveness and visibility of social policy was vital in a context where policies are merging and several stakeholders play different but vital roles, and the social dimension had to remain coherent and united, with its own clear value. The Commissioner concluded by announcing the publication at the beginning of October of a report on seeing the demographic challenge as an opportunity for the EU. It will be based on five strands: (1) establishing the conditions for raising birth rat es in the long-term; (2) getting more people into the workforce and extending working life; (3) maintaining and if possible boosting growth in labour productivity levels;
(4) organising legal immigration; and (5) guaranteeing a reliable macroeconomic framework for public finance.
Finnish secretary of state for social affairs and healthcare, Leila Kostiainen, wanted new, concrete ideas about how to update European social models, adding that good pensoins and suitable pension security systems were vital. Labour mobility had to be promoted and this was the aim of the draft directive on the transferability of additional pension rights.
The President of the Commission consultative des mutations industrielles (CCMI, an advisory committee on industrial change), also a member of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), Belgian trade unionist Josly Piette, said that collective bargaining represented unity in diveristy and should be made binding in the long-term. Piette called on the European Commission to be more proactive when social dialogue breaks down, encouraging employers and workers to compromise by threatening draft legislation. What do you think about raising the retirement age?, asked Prof.Yves Stevens (of the 'Université Catholique de Leuven' in Belgium). Piette replied that the principle of subsidiarity had to be applied, to respect the situation in each country and take account of employment and unemployment rates. Once the problem of unemployment has been settled, he said, we can talk about raising the retirement age.