Social Agenda Issue 54

summit of EU Heads of State and governments entirely devoted to employment and social affairs to have taken place since 1997. Adapted to 21st century challenges, the European Pillar of Social Rights goes beyond employment and social affairs stricto sensu : It also encapsulates issues like education, lifelong-learning, work-life balance, social housing, and even areas of purely national competence such as wages. Social Investment One of the hallmarks of the Juncker Commission is its emphasis on investment. This includes “social investment” or “investing in people”. True, the Youth Guarantee (whereby Member States commit themselves to providing young people with a good quality offer for a job, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within fourmonths of young people becoming unemployed or leaving formal education) and its financial arm, the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI), were adopted under the previous Commission, in 2013. However, in February 2015, the new Commission gave them a boost: It pre-financed €1 billion from the YEI to help EU countries start implementing the Youth Guarantee. And in October 2017, extra funding was secured for the YEI until 2020: It was topped up by €1.2 billion, matched by a further €1.2 billion from the European Social Fund. Upskilling pathways In 2015, the European Commission recommended a pathway for integrating the long-term unemployed into the labour market: A framework to provide tailor-made individual assistance to all jobseekers who have been out of work for more than twelve months, to prevent unemployment from turning into long-term unemployment. And in 2016, it launched the New Skills Agenda for Europe and its ten actions. This includes a Recommendation on Upskilling Pathways, which calls on EU countries to develop a series of targeted interventions to improve and consolidate support for low skilled/low qualified adults. For instance, it foresees that each beneficiary would receive a skills’ assessment, a learning offer designed on that basis and opportunities to have informally acquired skills validated and recognised. Still in 2016, the Commission launched the annual European Vocational Skills Weeks. It seeks to improve the image of this strand of vocational education and lifelong learning. It also gives all the actors concerned the opportunity to display their achievements and to network across borders. Freedom to move around The Juncker Commission undertook to strengthen cross-border mobility within the EU by establishing clear and fair rules, facilitating cooperation between Member States and fighting cases of abuse. Several key proposals were put forward in the spirit of the European Pillar of Social Rights and were still going through the EU decision-making process as we were going to press (see box page 13). A proposal to revise the law on the posting of workers was adopted in 2018 by the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. It now ensures “equal pay for equal work at the same place”, while improving administrative cooperation between EU countries in this area. A guidance document was adopted to help implementing various aspects of the Working Time Directive, in line with a growing body of case law. It touches upon the nature and conditions related to rest periods, on-call and standby periods and the implementation of paid annual leave. Tailor-made assistance: In 2015, the European Commission recommended a personalised pathway for integrating all jobseekers who have been out of work for more than twelve months. © Belga Image 1 2 / SOC I A L AG E NDA / MA R C H 2 0 1 9