The Diplomat
Spain signed yesterday, at the headquarters of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, the Additional Protocol to the European Social Charter which establishes a system of Collective Complaints and which allows States to be denounced before the European Committee of Social Rights for non-compliance with their commitments.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press release, the signing of this Additional Protocol, which opens the way to its ratification, “will allow Spain to adopt the entire system of the European Social Charter”, made up of the European Social Charter ratified by Spain, three Additional Protocols, two of which have already been ratified, and the Revised European Social Charter, currently in the process of ratification.
The European Social Charter was approved in Turin in 1961 and ratified by Spain in 1980, but the Revised Charter, which was opened for signature in 1996 and came into force on July 1, 1999, has not yet been ratified by Spain – which signed it on October 23, 2000 – due to the need to adapt certain aspects of Spanish legislation.
The Council of Ministers arranged in February 2019 for its referral to the Parliament to obtain its authorization, but the dissolution of the Chambers in March of that same year for the calling of elections meant that the requested authorization did not take place. As a result, the Government was forced to submit this text to the Parliament again in November 2020.
The Revised Charter incorporates the right to housing, to dignity at work and to defense against sexual abuse, among others. In addition, and according to the Additional Protocol on Collective Complaints -which was signed yesterday by the Permanent Representative of Spain to the Council of Europe, Manuel Montobbio, together with the Deputy Secretary General of the organization, Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni-, the Revised Charter includes the possibility of denouncing Spain or any other State before the Council of Europe for non-compliance with the social guarantees recognized in the Charter. Specifically, the Third Additional Protocol allows for collective complaints and introduces a procedure that allows trade union, employers’ and social organizations to submit complaints to the European Committee of Social Rights, guaranteeing the legal protection of social and labor rights.
“The adoption of the entire system will allow the development of new measures to improve the effective application of the social rights guaranteed by the European Social Charter, which extends protection to fundamental rights in the labor sphere”, the Ministry assured. “With this signature, Spain also continues to develop the conventional framework of the Council of Europe, in accordance with the commitment to this reference organization in the field of human rights in our continent”, it concluded.
Since it was opened for signature in 1995, only fifteen countries have ratified the Collective Complaints Protocol, including France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Austria, Denmark and, as of yesterday, Spain have signed the additional protocol but have not yet ratified it, and Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia and Turkey have not yet signed it. The Council of Ministers authorized its signature last December, a few days after the PP voted in the Congressional Foreign Affairs Committee against the ratification of the Revised Social Charter on the grounds that it was not clear whether it included the third Additional Protocol, which, in its opinion, could go “against legal certainty”.
