A few days before the Elections to the European Parliament Ipse asked three questions to the main groups of the European Parliament (EPP, S & D, ALDE, Greens / EFA and GUE / NGL). On the menu: the Social Dimension of the Economic and Monetary Union, Free movement and social convergence and the Social Economy and Social Entrepreneurship. The Greens/EFA Group sent us the answers on behalf of the President Daniel Cohn-Bendit.
1) Adding a social aspect to the Economic and Monetary Union
Ipse : In your opinion, what should be the role and impact of the EMU’s social pillar? What concrete measures (strengthening of social dialogue, social indicators, European unemployment insurance, European financial assistance, etc.) are required to create this pillar and what role can social protection play in this process?
“Social dimension of the EMU
The Greens-EFA group has repeatedly called to develop the social dimension of the EMU and strengthen the fundamentals of the monetary Union which should be built on solid democratic grounds and the community method. Without a strong social dimension, the EMU risks leading to a social race to the bottom and will remain unable to tackle record-high unemployment and rising inequalities or ensure the sustainability of economies.
The current policies are based on an incomplete scoreboard of indicators in the Macroeconomic Imbalances Procedure, leading to socially and environmentally regressive policies. We need to address not only macroeconomic and financial developments but also the social situation of European citizens.
Already last June, Greens-EFA co-presidents addressed a letter to Barroso / van Rompuy on the social dimension of the EMU, and called them to:
- put social and employment indicators at the heart of economic governance – and give them equal weight as to economic indicators;
- revise SCOREBOARD to include: employment, income inequality, in-work poverty, resource productivity!, capital productivity, energy component!, lower threshold for the indicator on Unit Labour Cost, ecological footprint, education expenditure…;
- additional scoreboard is necessary but cannot be substitute for a revision for MIP, we need BOTH, otherwise we risk ending up with a weak non-binding social scoreboard that continues to be overruled by a binding MIP procedure which lacks social elements;
- full role for social partners;
- progress on an EU instrument for asymmetric shock absorption;
- establish and improve EU minimum standards in the social policy area to prevent downwards competition on wages, labour rights, and social standards
According to the Greens-EFA, “the social dimension of the EMU needs to be more than just measuring and monitoring of the social situation. Alarming unemployment, inequality and poverty need to have a real impact on other binding European economic policies such as corrections of excessive deficits or excessive economic imbalances, and be taken directly into account in the formulation of these policies.”
Other parties do lip service, but when it comes to concrete proposals, they step back most of the time (see vote on the Greens-EFA AMs on the Resolution on the Social dimension of the EMU).
Ø Greens support the establishment of a scoreboard of key employment and social indicators, and called for social and employment indicators to be integrated in the scoreboard for the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP).
Ø We believe that these indicators should be put on equal footing with existing budgetary and macroeconomic indicators in the evaluation of national policies and the subsequent country specific recommendations as well as in decisions on the correction of excessive deficits and excessive macro-economic imbalances.
Ø We would support the inclusion of an indicator to measure inequality and indicators that would have a stronger preventive nature such as access to training and education, involuntary fixed term or part-time employment, in-work poverty rate and income replacement after unemployment.
Ø We highlighted that a detailed vision on the role and modalities of automatic stabilisers was lacking in the Commission Communication of 2 October 2013 and called on the Commission to present a green paper with detailed options for automatic stabilisers including a European unemployment benefit scheme (before the end of 2013).
Social dialogue:
A stable economic and monetary union requires addressing large macro-economic imbalances among Member States (that result of differences in business cycles, price and wage dynamics). In our view, wages are not merely macro-economic adjustment variables but also the main source of income that people need for a decent living.
We believe that a stronger European social dialogue and transnational/cross-border collective bargaining could contribute to avoiding the emergence of large imbalances. We want social partners to play their full role in the reinforced economic governance structure.
National systems need to be fully respected while coordination could be improved across the EU.”
2) Greater social convergence?
Ipse: Must social and fiscal convergence in the EU be intensified to assuage the tensions that exist between North and South, East and West, as well as between the center and periphery of Europe, while promoting worker mobility? What are the specific priorities?
Free movement
“Greens defend free movement rights without restrictions. We have fought long and hard to ensure that family members of mobile workers are not discriminated against and have the same rights as locals. This includes especially access to work and social security rights, but also access to care, housing, social and health services.
We are and were against restrictions for accession countries – not allowing EU citizens the right to free movement is a fundamental restriction of citizens’ rights and creates a 2-class Europe. Restrictions in free movement of workers lead to other exploitative arrangements under the free movement of services.
Free movement rights need to go hand in hand with strong protection, so that workers, who decide to go mobile, know about their rights and do not get exploited.
We have a strong expertise and track record on social security rights. Jean Lambert, UK Green MEP was rapporteur for extending social security coordination rights to 3rd country nationals and family members. We link the citizens’ requests relating to social security problems for mobile workers with our concrete policy work.
In the next years we will work hard to extend social security rights such as the export of unemployment benefits, rights for family members and claims rights. In the context of free movement of workers, we work hard to strengthen procedural rights and complaints procedures for citizens and the mutual recognition of partnerships across the EU.
Priorities
We believe that the ultimate aim of the economy should be to benefit society – and not the other way around.
One of the first priorities should be to stop austerity measures as they are damaging social cohesion and are not contributing to a (sustainable) way out of the crisis. Instead, the economy would need stabilisation, and a shift towards a green path.
The Green New Deal is about transforming our economies, tackling climate change and fighting unemployment and social exclusion and re-regulating the financial industry to serve the real economy.
Priorities also include a better targeting of funds so that it reaches those most in need. Greens played a major role in ensuring that the targeting of the European Social Fund is genuinely improved, including by the allocation of a minimum 20% for social inclusion measures and the fight against poverty.
We supported differentiated financing measures in employment and social inclusion related Funds.
We want to see progress on the concept of an EU instrument for asymmetric shock absorption, for example linked to (short term) unemployment.”
3) Development of social entrepreneurship and the social economy
Ipse: How can the next European Parliament take full ownership of the issues of social entrepreneurship and development of the social economy so as to follow through with the proposals put forward in Strasbourg?
“Strengthening cooperatives and social entrepreneurship are core elements of the social economy. The Giegold report laid down the most important demands where we continue requesting close follow up
The report recalled that:
- the specificities of social economy enterprises should be recognised and taken into account in European policies,
- steps should be taken to ensure that the European Observatory of SMEs include social economy enterprises in its surveys,
- the dialogue with social economy enterprises should be stepped up,
- the legal framework for such enterprises in the Member States should be improved;
- Commission committed to supporting stakeholders and organising a structured exchange of information, disseminating best practice to improve national legislation, collecting European statistics on cooperatives, simplifying and revising European legislation on cooperatives and initiating tailored education programmes and including references to cooperatives in EIF financial instruments;
Greens pushed the Parliament to repeatedly state its support for the social economy and will continue to do so.
The Giegold report laid down the most important demands where we continue requesting close follow up.
Here is a link to an interview on his report. It’s a video.
http://www.sven-giegold.de/2012/interview-on-the-european-copperative-society-statute/
And here is a link to the EP decision on EuSEF, which also helps some (bigger) social economy enterprises.
Here is what ECON decided on better statistics for social economy. Only in German.
English