
Gaps Remain in Accessing Social Protection
Commission has published a report about implementing the Council's recommendation about accessing social protection
VS – 02/2023
The European Commission published its first report about implementing its recommendation about accessing Social Protection on 31
January. As it is now three years since the Council adopted the recommendation
and it depicts a mixed picture of the implementation progress that has been
made. On the one hand, the report showed that a number of member states have
implemented or are planning to implement reforms to improve the situation. On
the other hand, the report also stated that most of the member states are not
attempting to close all of the gaps that exist in accessing social protection.
Principle 12 of the European Pillar of Social Rights
Principle 12 of the European Pillar
of Social Rights (ESSR) emphasises that employees and – under comparable conditions –
the self-employed are entitled to adequate social protection regardless of the
nature and duration of their employment. The Council included this in its 2019
recommendation. This differentiates between the four dimensions that can be
used for analysing access to social protection: formal protection, actual
protection, adequacy and transparency.
Monitoring
Part of the Council's recommendation is
that progress in realising access to social protection should be constantly
monitored and that the European Commission should report regularly to the Council about how the
recommendation is being implemented. The result of this was that the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) agreed on a monitoring
framework back in October 2020. In addition to the monitoring framework,
the first implementation report assessed recent measures and reforms announced
or implemented by member states, as identified in the national implementation
plans, the European semester reporting requirements and the development and
resilience plans. The results of the study made by the European Social
Policy Network (ESPN) about social protection for young people (see also News 05/2022) have also been included in the report.
Self-employed and atypical employees are inadequately protected
The report showed that social security
systems are still relying too much on traditional systems designed for workers
with permanent full-time contracts. Atypical workers, especially those in new
forms of employment such as platform work, are usually inadequately
protected.
However, the report confirmed progress in
making the services transparent. Most member states are working to reduce the
complexity of their application procedures and social protection rules and they
are trying to make it easier for everyone who is insured to claim social
protection benefits.
Initiatives that were part of the COVID-19 pandemic
The report emphasised that during the
COVID-19 pandemic, member states extended social protection to previously
unprotected groups through a variety of measures, most of which were temporary.
However, successful policy implementations also showed that member states were
aware of the gaps in their social protection systems. According to the European Commission, this
crisis policy could also be a model for structural reforms that will improve
the protection provided to the unemployed, atypically employed and
self-employed.
Access to social protection will be the focus of the Belgian Presidency of the EU Council
Belgium's Minister of Social Affairs and
Health, Frank Vandenbrouke, announced in an article
in Social Europe on 7 February that the ESSR's Principle 12 "Access to
Social Protection" will be a focus of the Belgian Presidency during the
first half of 2024. He is critical of the fact that a Council recommendation
was chosen as the European level political instrument for securing access to
social protection. In his view, a guideline would be much more effective, as
Council recommendations are not binding.