Guest speakers included Katia Berti and Charlotte Grevrours Ernoult, Heads of Unit in the European Commission for the European Semester and occupational health and safety respectively as well as Júlia Sardà Magem, Adviser to MEP Kira Marie Peter-Hansen, Co-Rapporteur of the European Parliament on pay transparency, Sanna Nivakoski from the EU agency Eurofound, and Konstantina Davaki, Researcher in Social Policy at the London School of Economics (LSE).

In dialogue with Katia Berti, CESI members exchanged in particular how the involvement of EU sectoral social partners and national trade unions can be boosted in the annual European Semester process.

Together with Charlotte Grevrours Ernoult, members of CESI discussed how trade unions and social partners at the EU and national levels can help promote and implement the EU’s new Strategic framework on health and safety at work 2021-2027.

Júlia Sardà Magem attended the meeting to update CESI’s members about the state of play in the negotiations in the European Parliament and the Council on the European Commission’s recent proposal for a directive on pay transparency and to debate to what extent CESI’s priorities for this dossier can be considered.

Sanna Nivakoski presented an update of the work of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) on gender disparities as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic fallout; Konstantina Davaki gave a background presentation on underlying causes of digital gender gaps. Both will serve to feed into further lobby work by CESI on these two topics.

The next meeting of the two Commissions will take place in 2022.