New CESI position papers on social dumping, a deepened EMU and the European Education Area
2018-12-13 12:00
At its last meeting of the year today in Brussels, the Presidium of CESI adopted new position papers on steps for a more democratic and investment-related EU economic and monetary union (EMU), on trade union priorities for the European Education Area, and on measures to bring down social dumping in Europe, .
CESI considers the EMU Completion Packages of the European Commission of December 2017 and its related implementation proposals of May 2018 to create a Reform Support Programme (RSP) and a European Investment Stabilisation Function (EISF) an important opportunity to rethink and rebalance the social priorities, public social investments possibilities as well as the scope of transparency, accountability and public legitimacy of the EU’s economic and fiscal governance structure.
An EMU more tailored to democratic legitimacy and vital public social investments
CESI’s objectives are threefold:
• putting social challenges at par with economic objectives, via the European Semester, the European Pillar of Social Rights and the newly proposed RSP;
• secondly, by making room for adequate levels of public social investments in the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) and the newly revised EISF; and
• thirdly, by putting in place more democratic, accountable and transparent governance structures, in particular through a deeper involvement of the European Parliament in the EMU and a more inclusive stakeholder engagement in the European Semester especially at the national levels.
A new European Education Area which puts teachers at its centre
In terms of the new forthcoming European Education Area, recently proposed by the European Commission, CESI calls on policy makers in particular:
• to strengthen social dialogue and the role of trade unions in the design and set-up of reforms under the European Education Area;
• to better support psycho-social and socio-educational staff to help prevent increasing occurrences of burnout of professionals, harassment and absenteeism among teachers
• priorities awareness-raising for a more positive image of the teaching profession and the role of teachers in educating responsible citizens of tomorrow; and
• to focus on stable and better material employment conditions for education professionals.
Towards less social dumping in the EU’s single market
According to CESI, a core reason for social dumping in the EU is that as long as the EU single market rules remain under the exclusive competence of the EU while social policies are primarily the responsibility of the Member States it will be difficult to achieve a balance between the single market freedoms and the social-political goals under the EU Treaties. Steps to help bring down social dumping should include a new effective European Labour Authority, more inclusive posting of worker rules, and revised social security coordination laws to ensure that mobile workers and cross-border frontier region workers and their families are not discriminated against in social security benefits vis-à vis domestic workers as a result of having exercised their right to free movement. According to CESI, the European Pillar of Social Rights should also become a reference framework for social policy making which is actually used by decision-makers.
