There is no alternative to a social Europe

Is the EU an effective champion of its citizens' rights? In a report published in March 2024, the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) make a rather heartening observation. "Over the last five years, there has been a renewed interest in social Europe, resulting in important and long-awaited political initiatives, particularly on minimum wages, employment platforms and corporate duty of care", say Esther Lynch, general secretary of the ETUC, and Bart Vanhercke, director of research at the ETUI.

A change of direction

Writing in Le Monde on 30 May 2024 (“L’Europe sociale est la grande absente de la campagne européenne”), the economist Bruno Coquet noted that, "In a European edifice focused on the free movement of goods, services, people and capital, and which has preferred enlargement to deepening, social goals have often taken second place. So much so that, having regularly been caught out by structural difficulties (deindustrialisation, ageing, etc.) and cyclical difficulties (unemployment, financial crisis, social inequalities, etc.), [national leaders] have occasionally been called upon to reaffirm Europe's social ambitions".

This is all the more true given that according to the latest Eurobarometer survey, 88% of EU citizens say that a social Europe is important to them.

The most obvious example of this dynamic is the European Pillar of Social Rights, adopted in 2017, which lays the foundations for future legislation. It places the emphasis on high-quality jobs, education and essential services, and on the elimination of precarious working conditions.

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“In a European edifice focused on the free movement of goods, services, people and capital, and which has preferred enlargement to deepening, social goals have often taken second place.” – Bruno Coquet

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One consequence of this new policy framework is the directive on minimum wages adopted in October 2022. While this does not try to impose the same minimum wage across the EU (leaving this up to the member states), it does aim to bring about an upward convergence of minimum wages in all countries.

Fundamentally, the text tries to ensure that minimum wages are sufficient to guarantee a decent standard of living. In concrete terms, it requires member states to promote collective bargaining on pay, to strengthen the negotiating capacity of employers and employees, and to protect those workers and organisations involved in such discussions. It calls on countries where the collective-bargaining coverage rate is below 80% to prepare an action plan to increase it.

"It's a radically different vision from the one that prevailed ten years ago", notes Agnieszka Piasna, a specialist in European employment policy. "After the 2008 crisis, wages, job quality and collective bargaining were seen as costs and obstacles. So this directive reflects a change in discourse around the EU's social dimension, which was previously dominated by a neoliberal conception of markets that weighed heavily on industrial relations and social protection."

The directive is due to be transposed by the member states in November 2024. "We can see that it is already having a positive impact on the upward trend in minimum wages in a number of countries, even before it is officially transposed into national law," observes Agnieszka Piasna.

There have been other advances, too. The 2019 EU directive on work-life balance gave both parents the right to take time off work to look after a child.

In 2023, a directive on pay transparency was a major step forward for gender equality. This text requires corrective measures to be taken in cases where an assessment reveals a pay gap of more than 5%. It also provides for a right to compensation for employees who are victims of discrimination.

Finally, the proposed Platform Work Directive is seen as a first step towards regulating labour conditions in the digital sector. It tries to ensure that people working via internet platforms have a properly defined employment status beyond "bogus self-employment".

In addition, it will ban companies from dismissing employees on the basis of an algorithmic decision. Piasna is positive about the directive: "For a long time, platform work was seen as a technological innovation. Today that is being called into question, which is a step forward. The trade unions fought hard for it. It sends out a strong message that no type of employment should escape regulation.”

Post-pandemic stimulus plans

The EU's social ambitions, promoted by the Commission of Ursula Von Der Leyen, were clearly evident during the Covid-19 pandemic. Bart Vanhercke, a social-sciences specialist and director of research at ETUI, elaborates: "The [EU's] post-pandemic recovery package did more than simply temporarily suspend budgetary rules. To finance an ambitious strategy it also made use of monetary instruments, and relaxed rules on state aid and borrowing."

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Georg Fischer, former director of social affairs at the European Commission, writes that lessons were learned after the 2008 financial crisis: "At the time of the pandemic, the EU set up the SURE programme (Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency). This provided financial assistance (of €100 billion) to national job-retention programmes, enabling those member states with limited budgetary leeway to pay to keep workers in the labour market. According to the Commission's assessment, these countries (and the EU as a whole) have recorded a higher employment rate and a much lower unemployment rate than expected in relation to the decline in economic activity."

This analysis is shared by Agnieszka Piasna, who points out that it took just two years to return to the pre-Covid-19 employment rate, compared to almost ten years after the 2008 crisis. But she remains circumspect: "Investment is essential if we are to continue to make progress in social and environmental terms. However, while many instruments do consolidate social policies, they do not legally guarantee that there will be no changes in the future, linked to austerity policies or the new European Commission."

Future environmental and social challenges

The environmental crisis is a major imperative. "By reforming its budgetary rules, the EU would lose the opportunity to achieve a genuine balance between its budgetary, ecological and social objectives, and would increase the risk of a return to austerity," say the authors of the annual report Benchmarking Working Europe, published by the ETUI and the European Trade Union Confederation.

Against this backdrop, the ETUI calls on EU countries to adopt progressive taxation and on the EU itself to create a sustainable investment mechanism so as "to guarantee the capacity of member states to achieve social and ecological objectives".

Other areas still need attention. One example is insecure employment, which mainly affects the unskilled young and immigrants. "For these people, the risk of poverty has increased in recent years. We need to do more to give immigrant workers access to quality jobs, whether they come from the European Union or a third country", says Piasna.

Such social imperatives are incumbent on Europe's trade unions, but not only on them. And there is more to be done. Protecting the right of workers to representation is essential if we are to reduce the gap between Europe's east and west. More generally, it will be a vital component of any strategy to address the full panoply of social ills.