Proposal for a Council Decision on a Tripartite Social Summit for Growth and Employment

The Tripartite Social Summit for Growth and Employment (TSS) was set up by Council Decision (2003/174/EC) of 6 March 2003, which formalised the practice of holding high-level, informal meetings since 1997 in the framework of the European Employment Strategy, and subsequently the Lisbon Strategy. The Commission proposed the 2003 Decision in order to institutionalise the practice of high-level consultation between the EU institutions and the EU social partners.

The proposal meant abolishing the former Standing Committee on Employment, which was set up in 1970 and reformed in 1999, but which proved too heavy to be an appropriate forum for EU consultation with social partners — in particular in view of enlargement and at that time the prospect of an EU 27 format. It was also too narrow in scope to enable the social partners to be involved in the EU employment strategy and the EU integrated economic and social strategy resulting from the Amsterdam Treaty and the 2000 Lisbon European Council.

Since 2003, the TSS has been a separate event from the European Council meetings and has broadly fulfilled its aim of facilitating the exchange of views at the highest level between the Commission, the EU Presidency and the EU social partners on employment and social aspects of the Lisbon Strategy (since 2010, and then of the Europe 2020 Strategy). Until the Lisbon Treaty entered into force, the meetings were co-chaired by the Council Presidency and the President of the Commission. The 2003 Decision also gave a role to the two subsequent Presidencies.

Following the institutional change brought in by the Lisbon Treaty to create the function of President of the European Council, the 2003 Council Decision establishing the Tripartite Social Summit needs to be revised. To maintain the logic of the Treaty and of the TSS institutional setting, the role and responsibilities that the 2003 Council Decision attributed to the rotating Presidency of the Council should be transferred to the newly created function of President of the European Council.

In addition, the overall policy framework needs to be revised, replacing the Lisbon Strategy with the Europe 2020 Strategy and specifying how the TSS for Growth and Employment contributes to the overall governance.

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)740: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:740:FIN

ESO: Background information: Tripartite Social Summit: EU leaders and social partners agree on stronger social dimension in the EU http://www.europeansources.info/record/memo-tripartite-social-summit-eu-leaders-and-social-partners-agree-on-stronger-social-dimension-in-the-eu/

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