Eduardo González
The Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU has set among its objectives to ensure that all its proposals in favor of “social Europe” arrive “with sufficient maturity” to the next Belgian Presidency so that “they can be achieved” before the end of the current European legislature and the holding of elections.
This was announced yesterday by the Deputy Director General for Social Affairs of the State Secretary for the EU of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Francisco Machancoses, during his participation in the event La Europa Social: ¿Avanza la Presidencia española de la UE? (Social Europe: Is the Spanish Presidency of the EU moving forward?) organized in Madrid by the Fundación Alternativas. The event was moderated by journalist Aurora Moreno, from Radio Nacional, and also included the participation of Dulce Manzano, from the CSIC’s Institute of Policies and Public Goods.
According to Machancoses, the main objective of the Spanish Presidency in social matters is “that all the issues reach the Belgian Presidency with sufficient maturity so that they can be achieved”, taking into account that in the first half of 2024 the current legislature of the European Parliament ends and European elections will be held, with the consequent paralysis of parliamentary activity, in which “nothing is approved”.
During his speech, Machancoses highlighted among the advances and objectives of the Spanish Presidency the proposal to create a European Disability Card, discussed this week at the Employment and Social Policy Council; the Child Guarantee, a measure approved on March 24 by the European Commission to combat child poverty, and the improvement of gender balance in the Boards of Directors. The European directive on gender violence is currently being negotiated, and despite the stumbling blocks it is encountering (only nine Member States support the inclusion of rape in the final text), “it is an advanced issue and we hope it will be successful in the final stage of the Presidency”, he declared.
In the area of health, Francisco Machancoses highlighted the “great initiatives” that have arisen after the pandemic, such as the Europe of Health, which “condenses all the EU’s aspirations” in this area. He also explained that a Spanish proposal is being negotiated to create a “European clinical data space”, which would go “beyond the European health card” and would allow any hospital in any EU country to have access “in emergency situations” to the clinical records of any citizen of another country.
Regarding the reception of these proposals by the Member States, according to Machancoses, in the “most social part” -that relating to the elderly, children or the disabled- there is “a fairly general consensus and there is quite a lot of progress, at least theoretically, because how it is applied later is another matter”. On the other hand, there are “more problems” in the area of gender because of “the pitfalls of the countries we already know about gender violence”.
Diego López Garrido
“Social Europe is one of the EU’s long-standing unfinished business,” lamented Diego López Garrido, Executive Vice President of Fundación Alternativas, during the presentation of the event.
In this regard, he said, the European Pillar of Social Rights, which was proclaimed by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission in 2017 and which is based on three fundamental principles, equal opportunities, adequate working conditions and social protection, is “the most important advance so far in social Europe”, but “it is not legally binding” because the competence in social matters corresponds to the States, not to the EU as a whole. “The EU has always put forward social advances, but the Member States keep important competences to themselves,” he explained.
However, in recent years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, it has been achieved that the European Semester, the economic governance framework established by the European Union after the 2008 financial crisis to coordinate economic and budgetary policies, has begun to overcome its initial “economicism” and to “give more social dimension to EU policy.”
Within this framework, he added, the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU has given special importance to the social pillar, with special attention to vulnerable groups, the elderly, the disabled and children, groups that “suffer especially in every economic or humanitarian crisis”.
Javier Doz
For his part, Javier Doz, member of the European Economic and Social Committee and vice-president of the European Semester Group, expressed his “great concern” about “a certain return to austerity in the economic and budgetary debates” of the EU, which could affect social policy, in the current context of “revision of the macroeconomic framework, European fiscal rules and the 2021-2027 budgetary framework”.
This situation could affect the “resources dedicated to social spending, which could be severely limited if the pressure now being exerted by the German government is met,” he warned. The German Executive, he assured, is “returning to captaining the frugal countries”. “When the recovery plan was approved, they were being captained by the Dutch government, but, in this case, and this is more worrying, the baton is being held by the German government,” he declared. “This is the great concern; we would like to see the whole program of the Spanish Presidency developed, but we are afraid that this may not be the case given this certain return to austerity that the debates are having”, he added.
Joaquín Pérez Rey
At the same meeting, the State Secretary for Employment and Social Economy, Joaquín Pérez Rey, stressed that “the Europe that we are building, especially with its policies following the pandemic, has definitively separated itself from what was the austerity Europe that condemned countries, including ours, to a poor existence after the huge financial crisis of 2008”.
“With the conditions it imposed on Spain and Greece to get out of the crisis, it was not a Europe of the people, it was a Europe of the markets, a Europe that does not serve us”, but “after the pandemic we have again seen the ability to build a prosperous and social Europe”. “That Europe that reacts in solidarity in the face of crises, that builds a social territory, such as minimum wages, democracy at work, social economy, that fights precariousness, is a Europe that is useful to citizens and that Europe is the main antidote to the great threat of our continent, which is called extreme right,” he said.
