Agenda Raad: werktijden, scorebord sociaal beleid, gelijkheid man-vrouw, pensioenen (en)

The next meeting of the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs (ESPHCO) Council will take place on 4 March 2004.

Employment and Social Policy

The Commission will be represented at the Council meeting by Commissioner Margot Wallström, acting Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs.

The following points are expected to be discussed.

Preparation of the Spring Council of 25/26 March 2004

The ESPHCO Council will finalise a key messages paper to be sent to the European Council and annexed to that meeting's Conclusions. These key messages will be based on a number of contributing documents and processes. Some are to be adopted by the Council, some will be presented by the Commission.

• Synthesis report

This document constitutes the Commission's principal contribution to the Spring Summit.

For more information, please see IP/04/74

• Scoreboard on the implementation of the Social Policy Agenda

The Commission annually adopts a scoreboard on the implementation of the Social Policy Agenda, which was endorsed at the Nice European Council and runs for the period 2000-2005. In spite of recent economic difficulties, important progress has been achieved in bringing forward concrete actions to implement the agenda, with a few specific exceptions, such as the proposed Directive on Temporary Agency Work, which is currently blocked in the Council.

• Joint Employment Report

This document is to be adopted by the Council and the Commission. The report assesses the national Action Plans and incorporates the messages of the report by the European Employment Task Force, chaired by Wim Kok. It is to be endorsed by the European Council and serves as the basis for the guidelines and country-specific recommendations that will be adopted by the Commission after the Spring summit, in parallel with the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines (BEPGs). One of the key issues in the Commission's draft was the linking of the European Employment Strategy with national budgetary appropriations, giving force to commitments on lifelong learning and other policies.

For more information, please see MEMO/04/10

• Commission Communication on Making Work Pay

The Commission adopted a Communication in January setting out its view on how tax and benefit systems should be modelled to contribute, as far as possible, to increased participation in the labour market while maintaining social security systems as a safety net for all. This issue relates to both employment policy and social protection policy. There was a discussion of this issue among EU ministers at their informal meeting in Galway in January 2004.

The Council will also be asked to endorse an opinion on the Communication from the Social Protection Committee. Social protection should not hinder entry to the labour market, but equally people must not be driven into poverty by reductions in benefits. Non-financial support, such as childcare, is at least as important in encouraging people to take up work as financial incentives.

For more information, please see IP/04/26.

• Commission Communication on Quality in Work

The Commission adopted a Communication in November 2003 on quality in work and presented it to the Council in December. The Lisbon agenda is not only about more jobs, but also better jobs, and in this Communication, the Commission makes the link between working conditions health and safety, pay, industrial relations etc and productivity.

For more information, please see IP/03/1628.

• Commission Communication on raising the age of exit from the labour market

The Commission will present its forthcoming Communication on increasing the employment of older workers and delaying the exit from the labour market. The Communication will report on progress made since the Barcelona European Council decided that "a progressive increase of about 5 years in the effective average age at which people stop working in the European Union should be sought by 2010". The Commission will also identify some areas where more needs to be done, such as stopping systematic early retirement, increasing the quality of work for older workers, introducing flexible forms of work and pensions. There is a clear link to the EU's targets on the employment rate of older workers.

• Joint inclusion report

This document, based on a draft by the Commission, is to be adopted by the Council. The process is similar as for the Employment report, but there are no recommendations to Member States at the end of the process. The report assesses what has been done in relation to commonly agreed objectives to fight poverty.

For more information, please see IP/03/1749 and MEMO/03/259.

• Report by the Social Protection Committee on the ongoing special studies on pensions

Last year, after presentation of the Joint Pensions Report, the Council asked for studies on a number of particular issues. On this occasion, the Social Protection Committee will report on work carried out to examine how pensions systems can support people staying longer in work. The Council will be asked to endorse the report. Issues taken up in the report include the demographic and other challenges to providing adequate and sustainable pensions. Although pensions are often a major issue due to the budgetary impact, it is important to note that the pensions agenda has an important social dimension.

• Forthcoming Commission Communication on extending the Open Method of Co-ordination to healthcare

This point is not on the agenda as such, but will be referred to in the Council's key messages paper to the Spring Summit. The Commission will propose extending open co-ordination to cover healthcare and long-term care as part of the streamlining of social protection.

• Commission Report on equality between men and women

For the first time, the European Council will consider a report from the Commission on gender equality. This procedure was agreed at the 2003 Spring Summit and will be repeated annually. The Commission will present its report to the Council on 4 March.

The report gives an overview of progress made to date in the EU and, where possible, the accession countries, regarding the status of women and men in main policy areas such as education, research policy, employment and social policies and participation in decision-making, and looks at gender-based violence and trafficking in women. It confirms the existence of significant gender gaps in most policy fields, and slow progress in narrowing them, and proposes that the European Council urge member states to take action in a number of areas e.g. full implementation of existing legislation on equal opportunities in the labour market, adoption of proposal on gender discrimination in goods and services, reduction in gender pay gaps.

For more information, please see IP/04/245.

NB. In 2003 the Commission adopted a Communication proposing that all the different procedures in the social protection area social inclusion, pensions, making work pay, and health care be streamlined into one report with effect from 2006. Until then, the different reports described above will continue to be produced.

Preparation of the Tripartite Social Summit

The subject of this year's summit will be Partnership for Change re-launching the bilateral dialogue between social partners and their co-operation with public authorities, with a view to more effective implementation of the Lisbon Strategy. There is no agenda agreed as yet.

Work programmes of the Employment and Social Protection Committees

The Chairmen of both Committees will present their work programmes to the Council. This point is primarily a formality, but confirms the importance of these two bodies in the application of the open method of co-operation.

The Chairman of the Employment Committee is Mr Mats Wadman, and of the Social Protection Committee, Mr Theo Langjaan.

Working Time

Ministers will discuss Working Time over lunch, so there will be no formal decisions or conclusions. The Commission will present the recent Communication launching a consultation on the Working Time Directive. The Irish Presidency will table a paper summarising the issues raised by the Commission Communication and inviting reactions on a number of specific points.

The Commission Communication is the first stage in a two-stage process whereby the Commission consults social partners on any possible legislative initiative (Article 138). The Commission took the opportunity of this requirement to launch a wider consultation, to which this debate will be an important contribution.

For more information, please see IP/04/1 and MEMO/04/1.

Any Other business

The Presidency will table 4 information notes. There is not expected to be any debate:

• UN Commission on the Status of Women the Commission will meet in March in New York. The Presidency will inform the Council as to how it intends to prepare for this meeting.

• Daphne II the Presidency will inform the Council on the progress of the proposed Daphne II programme, which is currently undergoing a second reading in the European Parliament.

• The Presidency will also provide written information on two forthcoming conferences:

  • 1 and 2 April, Presidency Conference "Reconciling Mobility and Social Inclusion - the role of social and economic policy" Bundoran, Co. Donegal

  •  6 and 7 May, Presidency Conference "New Horizons for Gender Equality" followed by meeting of EU Ministers with responsibility for Equality, Limerick city

Health and Consumer Affairs

There are no items to be discussed at the March Council.