A new start for social dialogue

Stefaan CeuppensEuropean Commission

29 April 2015

A new start for Social DialogueHigh level conference – 5 March 2015

• Strengthen social dialogue

• Involve social partners at all levels

• Competitiveness and fairness

• Social market economy

Follow-up actions

• Economic governance – Capacity building

• Improving social partners' involvement in the European Semester: country reports and visits; employment guidelines…

• Strengthening industrial relations and capacity building at national level: monitoring; mutual learning; funding…

• The EU's macroeconomic strategy and the need for investing in growth and quality jobs: investment plan (advisory hub)…

Follow-up actions

• Policy and law making

• Energy: meeting with VP Sefcovic (tbd)• Investment plan: workshop with VP Katainen (cross-I SPs, 13

April)• Digital Single Market: Liaison Forum (1 June) and SSDC…• Transport: conference on social agenda in the sector (4 June)• Long-term unemployment: consultation meeting (24 April);

probably similar meeting on labour mobility• Skills, education and training needs in anticipation of a

changing working environment: Liaison Forum (1 June) and SSDC

• Evidence base for SP agreements…

Follow-up actions

• Other initiatives

• Temporary thematic groups: Capacity building and European Semester, Policy making in line with better regulation agenda

• Informal working group on communication

Some possible food for thought…

… for your report on 10 years of CH SSDC and for the future roadmap

• Objectives

• Outcomes

• Other: work programme, participation

What can/should we expect…?

• "Classic federalist vision": its purpose is to take up or coordinate the key elements of national trade union objectives and develop a multilevel industrial relations system

vs.• "More experimental-type vision": European social dialogue is aimed

more at innovating, in respect of both themes and instruments

"For the time being, the European sectoral and cross-industry social dialogues are manifestly following the latter approach which is not the first choice of the trade unions: they would prefer to have more classic, binding instruments, and would like the effects not to be confined just to a few representatives meeting in Brussels. At the outset social dialogue and EU collective agreements were thought as an alternative way to EU legislation and a way to create a multilevel industrial relations system. 20 years after the Single Act and the first steps to develop social dialogue, the results look much more like OMC or EES and share the same problems of implementation and participation, at EU and national level."(Pochet, 2007)

What can/should we expect…?

"[…] social dialogue at EU level should […] be acknowledged and analysed as an evolving multi-actor and multi-level system sui generis. Consequently, any assessment of sectoral social dialogue at EU level must reveal the criteria applied. Assessing sectoral social dialogue in terms of lobbying activities, for instance, would lead to a much more positive result than an assessment in terms of regulatory capacity in the field of social policy." (Weber, 2010)

European social dialogue outcomes: typology

European Social Dialogue outcomes

(*) Including 2 agreements for which implementation by Council decision has been requested

Outcomes EU SD – numbers/sector

Outcomes SSDC Chemical Industry

Other

• Work programme• See good practices presented at LF 8 September 2014• More action/output oriented…?

• Participation in SSDC meetings• Plenaries 2012-2013 quite OK• Recent meetings…?

Thank you for your attention!