On Wednesday and Thursday 3-4 May, Vice-President for Democracy and Demography, Dubravka Šuica, and Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit, will attend the informal meeting of EU employment and social affairs ministers (EPSCO) in Stockholm, Sweden. In addition to EU ministers, representatives from EU social partners, civil society, the EFTA countries, as well as the International Labour Organization and Eurofound, will also participate. The meeting will be chaired by the Swedish Presidency.

The first session will discuss how to prevent mismatches between skills and jobs in times of transition. This discussion will be highly relevant and timely, especially in the context of the European Year of Skills. Eurofound will present their findings on skill-job matching.

The second session will focus on how to enable adequate and sustainable social protection considering the demographic transition. Commissioner Schmit will refer to the Commission’s recent report on the implementation of the Council recommendation on access to social protection for workers and the self-employed. The report highlighted significant disparities of implementation across Member States. In addition, the Chair of the High-Level Group on the future of social protection and of the welfare state in the EU and former European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, Anna Diamantopoulou, will share the results of the high-level group’s report.

A joint press conference with Commissioner Schmit and the Swedish Presidency will be livestreamed at 17.00 CET on EbS.