1. EUROPEAN PILLAR OF SOCIAL RIGHTS

2. "Il convient maintenant d'agir concrètement
"Il convient maintenant d'agir concrètement. Les gens en ont marre de nous entendre nous référer toujours aux théories sur l'Europe sociale. Ils voudraient voir des actions concrètes."
Jean-Claude Juncker during the Conference on the European Pillar of Social Rights, 23 January 2017
Building a more inclusive and fairer Union is a key priority for this European Commission.
The European Pillar of Social Rights is presented with today's and tomorrow's realities in mind: we want to overcome the damage that the economic crisis has done, but also to give answers to the rapid changes taking place in our societies and the world of work: the demographic ageing of our societies, the impact of digitalisation and the globalisation.
In this context, the European Pillar of Social Rights is not about restoring old policies but about delivering effective rights for citizens in the new social and economic realities. The essence of the Pillar is the following: investing in people is investing in their future, as well as in our economy. The social dimension is needed to create a resilient economy and sustainable growth and to strengthen our competitiveness as an international player.

3. What is the European Pillar of Social Rights?
A reference framework for upwards convergence
20 principles and rights
Building on the existing EU social law
A scoreboard of employment and social indicators
Several concrete initiatives
Since 26 April 2017, our proposal is on the table, crystallising all those contributions received.
The central objective remains: the Pillar should be a reference framework to drive the process of reforms at national level. More specifically, it will serve as a compass for the renewed process of both economic and social upward convergence, towards better living and working conditions. In other words, the Pillar will help us avoid a race to the bottom and encourage a race to the top.
The Pillar fits in the overall economic agenda of this Commission on promoting structural reforms, investment and responsible fiscal policies putting social policies at the heart of our policies.

4. Elements of the social package of 26 April 2017
The Pillar
Chapeau communication
Commission Recommendation with 20 principles
Identical draft for a Joint Proclamation of Parliament, Council and Commission
SWD: short fiche on each principle
SWD: a scoreboard showing progress on employment and social indicators
SWD: a consultation report
Work-life balance
Access to Social Protection
Written Statement Directive
Working Time Directive
Accompanying initiatives on
Investing in Children Recommendation: SWD on implementation
Active Inclusion Recommendation: SWD on implementation
Other elements
Reflection paper on developing the social dimension of Europe

5. What is the European Pillar of Social Rights?
20 principles and rights
Equal opportunities and access to the labour market
Education, training and life-long learning
Gender equality
Equal opportunities
Active support to employment
Secure and adaptable employment
Fair working conditions
Wages
Information about employment conditions and protection in case of dismissals
Social dialogue and involvement of workers
Work-life balance
Healthy, safe and well-adapted work environment
Adequate and sustainable social protection
Childcare and support to children
Social Protection
Unemployment benefits
Minimum income
Old age income and pensions
Health care
Inclusion of people with disabilities
Long-term care
Housing and assistance for the homeless
Access to essential services
The European Pillar of Social Rights puts forward 20 concrete principles and rights that are structured around three categories:
equal opportunities and access to the labour market;
fair working conditions; and
adequate and sustainable social protection.
They range from the right to a minimum wage all over Europe to the right to health care; from the principles of work-life balance and equal opportunities to the right to social protection.
We are reaffirming some rights that are already present in the EU. But we also complement them to take account of new realities of the 21st century.

6. Putting the Pillar into action: a joint effort
Update EU legislation, step up enforcement
Funding
European Semester
Social dialogue
Civil Society
The principles and rights enshrined in the Pillar fall under the competence of the EU, the Member States and social partners. So the Pillar is essentially a joint endeavour. We can and will only build a fairer and more social Europe together.
This is why the Pillar has been presented in two ways: Not only as an immediately effective Commission Recommendation, but also as a proposal for an interinstitutional Proclamation with the European Parliament and the Council. Our aim is to achieve this joint proclamation towards the end of 2017.
At the European level, all the various instruments available will be mobilised:
EU legislation: with an emphasis on enforcement of the existing provisions, to be updated and complemented where necessary. A concrete example is the draft directive on Work life balance.
Social dialogue: engaging with EU social partners to move the policy agenda forward. Concrete examples are the two consultations on the written statement directive and access to social protection.
Policy guidance: to support implementation and delivery. A concrete example in the Communication on the working time directive.
The European Semester: benchmarks will be key to sharing good practices and identifying policy responses to challenges which we all face.
And financial support, through a diversity of EU funds.

7. First initiatives Work-life Balance: Access to social protection:
Directive + policy measures
Work-life Balance:
Social partners' consultation
Access to social protection:
Social partners' consultation on the Written Statement Directive (91/533/EEC)
Information rights for workers:
Legal guidance on Directive 2003/88/EC
Working Time:
The Pillar is accompanied by a number of legislative and non-legislative initiatives related to work-life balance, information for workers, access to social protection and working time. In the logic of the Pillar, these proposals, once adopted, will update and complement the EU acquis:
An initiative on Work-Life Balance: to help working parents and carers to better combine work with family and caring obligations. This initiative includes a proposal for a Directive with new or higher minimum standards for parental, paternity and carer's leave, as well as policy guidance, supporting men in greater take-up of leave and reducing economic disincentives for women to work.
Consultation of social partners on a proposed revision and modernisation of the Written Statement Directive: so that workers and employers, irrespective of the type of contract, have clarity on their contractual relationship. Our goal is to increase protection for the most precarious workers, including digital workers.
Consultation of social partners on access to social protection: we want to explore ways of making sure that as many people as possible, including self-employed and gig-economy workers are covered by social security. That means that they can build up rights against contributions.
Legal guidance on the Working Time Directive: EU rules limit average weekly working hours and define mandatory rest periods. However, the Member States have difficulties in making this work on the ground. This guidance brings together and interprets recent case law, to help Member States apply the rules.

8. 1. Work-life Balance: legislative measures
Paternity leave: 10 working days, compensated at sick pay level
Parental leave: 4 months, non-transferable between parents, compensated at sick pay level, flexible uptake, until child is 12
Carers' leave: 5 working days/year/worker to take care of child or dependent relative, compensated at least at sick pay level
Flexible working arrangements: Right for parents of children up to 12 or carers to request flexible working arrangments
Dismissal protection/anti discrimination: for leaves and flexible working arrangments
It is high time to put in place a legislative and policy framework giving both men and women equal choices on how to balance their working lives and family responsibilities.
Women are still underrepresented in the labour force, despite their overall high qualifications. The overall employment rate of women is still 11.6 percentage points lower than that of men and in full time equivalent, the gap exceeds 18 points, because part-time workers are mainly women. Women spend five times more time than men on care and household activities. The gender gap is even more striking when we look at full-time positions.
Gender inequalities are particularly acute for parents and people with caring responsibilities. Women still take up the majority of caring responsibilities. As a consequence, when they have children, or when they have to take care of an elderly or disabled relative, they often reduce their working hours, take long leave, or withdraw from the labour market altogether.
Women dropping out of the labour market means that businesses lose access to talented and skilled staff – and this at a time of growing skills shortages. For the women concerned, it means fewer possibilities to develop their potential and a persistence of income and pension gaps.
The Commission initiative "New Start to Support Work-Life Balance for Parents and Carers" will seek to improve the current legislative framework. At the same time, it promotes affordable and quality formal care services available for children and other dependents.
The legal proposals include:
The introduction of paternity leave of at least 10 working days, paid at sick level.
The strengthening of parental leave by making the 4 month period non-transferable between parents and compensated at least at sick pay level .
The introduction of five days carers' leave per year to take care of seriously ill or dependent relatives.
This initiative will not only benefit families. As mentioned, businesses will profit too - from a wider talent pool and a more diversified, motivated and productive staff. This will lead to higher productivity and competitiveness. In addition, the initiative will also benefit Member States, as it will improve their fiscal position by reducing unemployment and increasing tax incomes.

9. 2. Access to social protection
Do we need new rules?
More flexible working arrangements provide additional job opportunities
But risk of new precariousness and inequalities
How to provide as many people as possible with social security cover?
In many Member States people in self-employment and people in non-standard employment are left without sufficient access to social protection benefits and without sufficient access to employment services.
The accumulated effects of such disparities in entitlements give rise to new inter- and intra-generational inequalities between those with full social rights and those without. Over time, it may also threaten the sustainability of our social protection systems.
A second issue is the lack of transferability of entitlements from one status to the other. We know that people will be changing jobs more frequently in the future and we also want to encourage entrepreneurship and people creating their own jobs. But people may feel discouraged from changing if the transferability of their entitlements is not ensured.
Therefore, we have launched a formal 2-stage social partner consultation:
On whether social partners see possible areas for further EU action in this field and, if so, which branches of social protection and employment services are considered most relevant.
On whether all workers in non-standard forms of employment should be included in a possible initiative?

10. 3. Written Statement Directive (91/533/EEC)
Ensures that workers get essential information about their working conditions
Effectiveness could be improved
Working conditions not always confirmed or sufficiently explained in a timely manner
Opportunity to open a debate on minimum safeguards in very flexible and/or precarious jobs
A second social partner consultation aims at modernising the EU rules on what needs to be spelled out in a job contract. More specifically, we want to ensure clarity for workers and employers on key elements of their contractual relationship, irrespective of the type of contract.
Our recent evaluation of the Written Statement Directive shows scope to update and strengthen the effectiveness of the Directive. In particular, it appears that many workers in the EU do not receive a written confirmation of their working conditions or do not receive all the information they need in a timely manner. This includes domestic workers for example.
We are consulting on different options. One could be to include a European definition of who is a worker in the Directive, based on recent evolutions in the case law. Another option could be to extend the list of types of workers and/or contracts covered by the Directive and to shorten the list of exceptions.
We also want to open a debate on minimum safeguards for every worker. This means that we would be going beyond the initial purpose of the Directive in order, possibly, to include also some minimum standards on issues such as the maximum duration of probation.
If well designed, we think that such minimum standards would be fully compatible with increased productivity, growth and jobs. They can reinforce legal certainty and predictability for employers and avoid incentives for regulatory arbitrage and unfair competition within the EU. But we are at this stage only launching the debate and consulting social partners for their views.

11. 4. Working Time Directive
The Interpretative Communication – Legal Guidance
The objectives:
offer greater certainty and clarity to national authorities;
help better apply the Directive’s provisions in the context of new and flexible work arrangements;
ensure the effective enforcement of existing EU minimum standards and therefore support better protection of workers’ health and safety.
[Examples: Present the conditions under which rest periods can be shortened or postponed; Clarify the situations in which there is an obligation to grant workers carry-over of untaken paid annual leave]
We have been exploring for many years a possible amendment of the Working Time Directive.
However, it turns out that positions are more than ever entrenched. At the same time, many questions of interpretation arise, such as (1) what counts as working time or (2) what happens to untaken paid annual leave?
We therefore have opted for an interpretative Communication, bringing together in a single document the clarifications by the Court of Justice as well as the Commission's views on concrete issues which have not been addressed by the Court yet. [The latter of course fully recognising that the Commission's views are subject to the jurisdiction of the Court.]
Our initiative will help Member States better implement the existing Directive, provide national legislators with greater certainty and allow employers to have a clearer picture of their obligations. It should reduce time spent in litigation, by preventing unintended breaches of the Directive.
Ultimately, it will contribute to higher productivity thanks to avoiding health and safety risks for workers.

12. Monitoring societal progress
To serve as a reference framework to monitor employment and social performances of Member States in a holistic way
12 areas along three dimensions of 'societal progress':
Equal opportunities and labour market access
Dynamic labour markets and fair working conditions
Public support, social protection and inclusion
14 headline and 21 secondary indicators
Based on existing data from e.g. EU-LFS, EU-SILC, the Structure of Earnings Survey and the OECD's PISA survey
To be used in the framework of the European Semester, in particular in the Joint Employment Report
Social Scoreboard
[12 areas along three dimensions of 'societal progress': Equal opportunities and labour market access; Dynamic labour markets and fair working conditions; Public support, social protection and inclusion]
A social scoreboard has been established to monitor progress on the ground too. It will expand and replace the existing scoreboard of key economic and social indicators used in the European Semester of economic policy coordination to better take into account social considerations. It will also help us show progress towards a social triple A for Europe. Concretely, it will monitor issues such as the share of early school leavers, the youth unemployment rate or the impact of social transfers on poverty reduction.
This will serve to track trends and performances across countries and to inform policy guidance in the context of the European Semester.

13. Shaping Europe's social dimension
White Paper on the Future of Europe
The future of EU finances
Developing the social dimension of Europe
Deepening the Economic and Monetary Union
Harnessing globalisation
The future of Europe's defence
Reflections on key trends and their implications
Five scenarios for the way forward to 2025
Looking ahead of us and thinking of Europe in the years to come, this demands a clear and commonly shared idea of what the EU can and cannot do in the social field.
The discussion on the social dimension of Europe is part of the broader debate initiated on the future of the EU27.
The Commission’s White Paper on the Future of Europe has begun a wide-ranging discussion on what future we want for ourselves, for our children and for Europe.
The reflection paper on the social dimension of Europe, published alongside the package on the European Pillar of Social Rights, focuses on the profound transformations European societies and the world of work will undergo in the coming decade. It also sets out a number of options on how we can collectively respond, by building a Europe that protects, empowers and defends.
In our reflection paper we are looking beyond the areas of employment, social affairs and inclusion (that means a more "societal" dimension).
Our paper takes a prospective look at the drivers of change by 2025; we know that some trends are irreversible and likely to accelerate in the next decade, although new opportunities will emerge. In particular: skills, inequalities, ageing, globalisation and productivity.
It's time to look ahead: what kind of social Europe do we want? What kind of future do we want for ourselves and our children? And more importantly: how do we want to achieve this? Who will be taking what responsibility?
In the logic of the White Paper, the reflection paper presents various options on how the "social dimension" could be developed in the future.
These options are:
Limit the "social dimension" to the single market
Those who want to do more could do more in the social field
The EU27 could deepen the social dimension together
All of these options are feasible within the current Treaties, and of course mix and match is possible.
The Rome Declaration adopted by EU leaders on 25 March outlined the importance of a social Europe.
The Social Summit for Fair Jobs and Growth, to be held in Gothenburg on 17 November 2017, will be a further opportunity to take these ideas forward.
The scope of the reflection paper is to present a wide approach to social issues. It does not give the Commission's preferred options at this point.
We look forward to a lively debate with you [and with national parliaments] in the next months.

14. And now? March 2017 White Paper on the future of Europe
17 November 2017
Social Summit for Fair Jobs and Growth
26 April 2017
Proposal for the Pillar
+ Reflection paper on social Europe
14-16 December 2017
European Council
The Rome Declaration adopted by EU leaders on 25 March outlined the importance of a social Europe.
The Social Summit for Fair Jobs and Growth, to be held in Gothenburg on 17 November 2017, will be a further opportunity to take these ideas forward.
The scope of the reflection paper is to present a wide approach to social issues. It does not give the Commission's preferred options at this point.
We look forward to a lively debate with you [and with national parliaments] in the next months.