As part of the follow-up to the 2022 Care Strategy and the 2023 Social Dialogue Initiative, the Commission adopted on 10 July 2023 a decision setting up the European social dialogue committee for social services.

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The committee will bring together European employers and trade union organizations of the sector.

Relevant European social partner organizations of social services submitted in 2021 a joint request to the Commission asking for the establishment of a social dialogue committee for their sector. The request was assessed by the Commission services, which concluded that it was in line with Decision 98/500/EC on the establishment of European sectoral social dialogue committees.

The organizations taking part in the committee will be Social Employers and CEMR (the European Council of Regions and Municipalities) representing European employers in social services, and EPSU (the European Public Service Union) representing European workers of the sector. In addition, UNI-Europa and CESI (the European Confederation of Free Trade Unions) will also be part of the workers delegation to plenary meetings.

There are already 43 existing European social dialogue committees which bring together employers and trade unions from a wide variety of the EU economy sectors, including agriculture, construction, education, financial services, hospitals, and telecommunications amongst others. Social services will be the 44^th European social dialogue committee and the first one set up in over a decade.

The social services committee will cover approximately 9 million workers across the EU, and its objectives will include:

• delivering opinions and recommendations to the Commission on initiatives with regard to social and employment policy and the development of European policy having consequences in these areas for the social services sector
• encouraging and developing the social dialogue at European, national and local level in the social services sector
• conducting exchanges on topics of mutual interest
• developing joint actions
• strengthening the capacity of national social partners
• responding to consultations and other initiatives by the European Institutions in a proactive manner

Next steps

The Commission services will be in contact with social services organizations in order to assist them with the preparation of the first meeting of the Committee, which will probably take place in Q4 of 2023, and during which the Committee Rules of Procedure and its Work Programme will be formally adopted.