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The European Social Insurance Platform (ESIP) held a conference on “The European Pillar of Social Rights: perspectives for social security” on the occasion of its 20th anniversary.
In her opening speech, Marianne Thyssen, European Commissioner for Employment, said that the European Pillar of Social Rights aimed to establish a “social compass” for fair and dynamic labour markets. She stressed the fact that these markets are increasingly flexible, that the number of self-employed workers is increasing (especially among young people) and that they are not well covered (frequent changes of job position, combination of salaried and self-employed work). She mentioned the launch of an initiative concerning access to social insurance for flexible and self-employed workers. Finally, the Commissioner underlined the importance of transnational dialogue between social security systems to identify and transpose good practices.
Allan Larsson, Special Advisor to President Juncker for this European Pillar, felt that Europe is at a crossroads: after its construction in the 1950s and 1960s, we saw deregulation from the 1970s and then globalization and the financial crisis of 2008 which shattered a number of fundamental principles. Globalization, European economic integration and new technologies have resulted in major structural changes and growing insecurity for workers and their families. Social policies must ensure security in this period of change, low growth and high unemployment. Allan Larsson considers that the European Pillar of Social Rights should become a Social Pact, on a par with the Stability Pact. He stressed that this pillar aimed to ensure good working conditions and good social conditions.
Read the ESIP Press release
The ESIP brings together 40 national social security organizations from 15 EU Member States and Switzerland. This platform thus covers more than 240 million Europeans insured by social security systems. Its main roles are to encourage exchanges of practices and information between its members and to defend its values of solidarity and equal access for all to social security benefits in the EU via common positions.
