Today's Success,Tomorrow's Problem?
Column
Frank Vandenbroucke*
The enlargement of the European Union has been an enormous political success. After three devastating wars in less than eighty years and the Cold War, we have finally achieved peace and cooperation in a sustainable way. The question now is : How are w e going to turn
this p o litic a l success into a so cio -eco n o m ic o n e 1 Today's success should not become to
morrow's problem.
If we are to turn the enlargement into a so cio-economic success, a blueprint should be drafted outlining European social policy for the next few years. Under the Dutch presi dency, the debate should be energetically launched on a roadmap for post-enlargement social policy so that during the Luxembourg presidency in 2005, an agreement can be reached on a European Social Agenda for the period from 2006 to 2010. It ought to be a so cial agenda that utilises the full set of instru ments the EU has at its disposal to pursue so cial policy: legislation, policy co-ordination, European Social Fund and social dialogue.
It seems unlikely that social legislation will increase to a substantial extent in the next few years. This does not alter the fact that what was agreed on at the Nice Summit for the 2000-2005 Social Agenda needs to be carried out, and some new legislative steps are called for. The most important ones are:
- the Commission amendment to promote the principle of equal treatment regarding ac cess to and the supply of goods and ser vices;
- the proposal for a directive on company mer gers;
- the proposal for a directive on temporary em ployment;
— the revision of regulation 1408/71 in the light of provisions on cross-border health care and the Court's case law since the Kohl and Deck er judgements;
- the revision of the directive on working hours.
As to policy co-ordination, the OMC has proved useful in the area of social inclusion. But we need to go further if we really want to advance towards the Lisbon objective of eradi cating poverty by 2010. In my view the new si tuation since May 1 is grounds for strong argu ments to continue with the idea of guaranteed minimum resources. In essence, a European directive could stipulate that every member state should provide a minimum level of finan cial resources to give everyone an opportunity to live a life of human dignity. This minimum income at a national level is a crucial tool in the battle against poverty and the social exclu sion. The discussion on the relevance of this kind of step should be on the new European Social Agenda.
I can be brief about pensions. As in the Em ployment Strategy, the weakest link in the OMC on pensions is clearly its learning aspect. The method's vulnerability with regard to this aspect is quite evident when it comes to the de velopment of indicators. Despite the progress that has been made, the debate has slowed down considerably since mid-2003. As a result, various aspects of pension system adequacy re main impossible to compare, or to measure for that matter. This obviously underlines the lightness of the social indicators as compared with the solid battery of financial sustaina bility indicators, and thus the imbalance be
* Frank Vandenbroucke is the Belgian Minister for Employment and Pensions.
Column
tween the three dimensions of the OMC on pensions, i.e. adequacy, financial sustainability and modernisation. It seems important for the future Social Policy Agenda to determine a time path that can lead to a complete and ba lanced set of indicators covering the three di mensions of pension cooperation. While streamlining various open methods of co-ordi nation for example, we might consider whether collaboration on pensions could be reinforced by introducing individual recommendations to the member states. For the moment, the only real recommendations are issued by the ECO- FIN Council in the framework of economic policy co-ordination.
In addition to social inclusion and pensions, a third area - health care - has been cited as eligible for open co-ordination. Thanks to last month's communications from the Commis sion on Patient Mobility and the strengthening of national 'health care and long-term care' strategies, this OMC can hopefully be launched quickly, especially around the issues of quality, accessibility and financial sustain ability.
As to future financing of the structural funds, my point is that the funds should have adequate resources and reflect real solidarity with the new member states. This is why I do not sympathise with the position of the net contributors, the six countries that pay the EU more than they get in return, and would like to lim it the EU budget at 1% of the Union's GDP. It seems evident that the rapid integration of the poorer regions into the European economy is in our own interest, since it can mean at least a partial answer to issues like poverty, so cial dumping, environmental threats and mi gration. The European Commission's proposal to set the financing of the structural funds at 1.24% of the GDP in the European Union should consequently be viewed as striking the right balance. Balance indeed, since even with the relatively higher budget, there will be far less solidarity with the new member states than after the former enlargements. This ob
viously has a great deal to do with the unprece dented size of this enlargement, quite a big
bang compared to the previous ones.
The new member states clearly deserve am ple respect for how they did their legal home work. They have largely transposed the im pressive acquis communautaire into their na tional legislations, and did so almost entirely on their own. In this context, I would like to focus on one particular aspect of the acquis communautaire, i.e. the social dialogue. Gen erally speaking, social dialogue needs to be further developed in the new member states. It is clear though that European social dialogue cannot function efficiently and its importance may even decline if there is no guarantee that agreements at the European level will be effec tively transposed to the national level.
Similarly, the Partnerships for Change that the last Spring European Council and Tripartite Social Summit called for and that should mobi lise the social partners at the national level around the Lisbon objectives cannot function if the social dialogue in the member states lags behind. In this perspective, the new European Social Agenda should address the question of whether collective agreements that are not de clared generally binding and thus need to be transposed by the national social partners are still a useful option.
To conclude, I have listed a number of steps that jointly constitute a roadmap. Some of the elements of this roadmap need to be imple mented at the Union level via an ambitious European Social Agenda. Other elements mainly require efforts on the part of the old member states (financial perspectives reflect ing real solidarity). The new countries will also have to make extra efforts (full implementation of the social acquis, with a special focus on so cial dialogue).
If we succeed in mobilising a sufficient number of actors around a roadmap of this kind, the enlargement will be what it is sup posed to be: a smashing success.
