Meeting of Ministers of Health, Employment and Social Affairs

The Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs (EPSCO) Council, which is composed of employment, social and consumer protection, health and equal opportunities ministers in EU Member States, met in Luxembourg on 19th-20th of June to discuss the European Semester 2014 and the social dimension of the EU/European Monetary Union (EMU).

The European Semester

The EPSCO Council held a policy debate on the European Semester 2014 on employment and social policy issues. Ministers analysed and approved the employment and social policy aspects of the country-specific recommendations produced by the European Commission and discussed the national reform programmes outlining the countries’ efforts to help achieve the targets of the Europe 2020 strategy.

Overall, the discussions reflected broad agreement on the common challenges at national level, such as the sustainability of pension systems and the need for strengthening the resilience of the labour markets. The debate focused mostly on the measures taken by governments to combat labour market segmentation and put in place a Youth Guarantee.

However, much progress is still to be made to ensure that active labour market policies become more efficient and are able to improve the participation of those furthest from the labour market, including people with disabilities. Ministers recognised that, as a result of the economic crisis, several countries have been confronted with declining household disposable income rising inequalities, poverty and social exclusion. This demonstrates that deepening economic coordination at European level has not led to sufficient improvement in the social dimension. Social policy reform includes issues that cannot be captured exclusively by the governance instruments of the European Semester. Therefore, a critical aspect for success is the future strengthening of social governance of the European Semester process.

The EU is moving further away from the 2020 poverty targets to lift 20 million people out of poverty. To better understand the reasons for this, the EPSCO Council has endorsed the EU’s employment performance monitor and benchmarks, as well as the scoreboard for employment and social indicators. The scoreboard is one of the main instruments for the strengthening of the social dimension of the EMU and the European Semester and it is hoped that it will help enhance the capacity of Member States to identify, at an early stage, the major employment and social trends which can severely undermine employment and social cohesion in the euro area and the EU at large. The employment and social scoreboard is being applied this year for the first time and has indicated that the economic and financial crisis has had an impact on employment and social cohesion, resulting into a growing divergence between countries and societies.

The social dimension of the EU

The EPSCO Council took stock of the latest developments regarding the social dimension of the EU on the basis of four reports published by the EU’s Social Protection Committee (SPC), made up of Member State representatives in the field of social policy.

Social dimension of the Europe 2020 strategy
The report recommends that in the remaining years to 2020, the fight against poverty, inequalities and social and labour market exclusion should remain a high priority for Member States and the EU. The Europe 2020 strategy needs to encourage Member States to step up their efforts to strengthen social investment across policies. The focus should be on investing in human capital development, activating labour market participation and improving the capacity of social protection systems to provide an effective protection against the risks that people face across the life cycle.

Ex-ante coordination of major social policy reforms
The report focuses on the outcome of a feasibility test of major policy reforms in policy areas, such as long-term care, incapacity benefits or means-tested active inclusion policies in various countries. The reforms focus on further coordination of the economic, employment and social policies to ensure the consistency of those policies.

Minimum income schemes in the euro area
The report indicates that almost all of the Eurozone countries have put in place provisions for granting means-tested minimum income benefits to eligible individuals and households. The level of these benefits varies across the euro area and reflects country-specific economic and social conditions and political choices in Member States.

Adequate social protection for long-term care needs in an ageing society
This report, which was endorsed by the EPSCO Council, examines what can be done to help Member States ensure that they have in place adequate provisions for long-term care needs organised in a sustainable way. Long-term care includes a range of services for people who are dependent on help for their daily living over a long period of time. The report addresses three main challenges – an increase in needs, the decline in supply of carers and an increase in expectations. The report argues for addressing these challenges with a proactive policy approach that focuses on prevention, rehabilitation, age-friendly environments and more efficient care delivery.