Eduardo González
The Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU begins this week with the informal meeting of Ministers of Employment and Social Affairs, in which Spain will be represented by its Second Vice President and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz.
“As usual, each Presidency organizes an informal meeting of Ministers of Employment and Social Affairs” and, therefore, “the Belgian Presidency hosts its first major event in the field of employment and social policy,” the website reads. launched by the Government of Belgium to report on its European semester.
The informal meeting began yesterday in Namur and will conclude tomorrow, January 12. Yolanda Díaz, leader of the leftist Sumar formation, plans to speak today, in which she will probably take the opportunity to present the results of the recently concluded Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU, in which, in her own words, progress has been made “towards a more social, green, feminist and democratic Europe.”
“We have also managed to introduce innovative debates to the European agenda to improve the living and working conditions of citizens,” declared Díaz at the end of December, in his assessment of the Spanish semester and in reference to the legislative and non-legislative files addressed during the Spanish Presidency, as well as the events held around the three priorities of the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy in this period: social dialogue, decent work and social economy.
The Namur meeting brings together the ministers of the EU Member States with the competent European commissioners, as well as representatives of the European Parliament, ministers of the countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and of two candidate countries and representatives of the social partners and civil society.
During the last Spanish Presidency, the informal ministerial meeting on Employment and Social Affairs was held in mid-July in Madrid and was chaired by Yolanda Díaz. In addition, it had the participation of the then Minister of Social Rights and Agenda 2030 and General Secretary of Podemos, Ione Belarra, and the then Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration and current Minister for Digital Transformation and the Public Service, José Luis Escrivá.
