Social inclusion on EU agenda

EUROPE should ensure its employment policies enhance social inclusion as well as creating more and better jobs, a meeting with the EU social partners agreed yesterday.

As social ministers from 29 EU, accession and European Economic Area states meet in Galway today, a tee-up meeting of the European social partners yesterday also agreed that social partnership should play a crucial role in achieving the correct balance between job flexibility and security.

Social and Family Affairs Minister Mary Coughlan said it was crucial that a balance be struck between jobs policies and social protection policies.

Our aim must be to improve incentives to work while providing a high level of social protection for all,” she said.

Minister for Labour Affairs Frank Fahey said flexibility was not only in the interest of the employer. “It serves the interests of workers, helping to combine work with caring roles or education and allowing them to lead their preferred lifestyles,” he said.

Mr Fahey said social partnership would be crucial in achieving that change. “There was agreement on the need to improve linkages between the interaction of the social partners at EU and at national level,” he said.

But the most difficult challenge would be securing the political conviction and the active involvement of the social partners required to achieve the necessary reform, he said.

Yesterday’s troika meeting, chaired by Ireland and the next joint EU presidents, Holland and Luxembourg, gave the European social partners - unions, NGOs and business lobby groups - a chance to put forward their views on how Ireland’s EU Presidency goal of streamlining and improving employment policies should be adopted.

While business groups criticised Europe’s overly regulated employment policies and called for greater market flexibility, unions and social NGOs warned the lack of quality work, not the attitude of unemployed people, should be focused on.

This week’s informal summit will culminate in a formal decision on how best to advance Europe’s competitiveness and employment at the Social Minister’s spring summit in March.

However groups representing the unemployed in Europe criticised the tone of the summit.

John Monks of the European Trade Union Confederation said it should not be assumed the unemployed were reluctant to work.

“There is an underlying assumption that the unemployed are reluctant to work, and that means must be found through the social security systems to put pressure on them to work,” he said.