MEPs reiterate their call for role in social dialogue

Date: 07/03/1996

By Michael Mann

MEPS have welcomed the draft agreement on parental leave hammered out between the EU social partners, but are set to repeat their call to be given a definite role in the social dialogue following the Intergovernmental Conference.

In a generally favourable opinion adopted after consultations in the social affairs and women's rights committees, German Christian Democrat Anne-Karin Glase calls for the social dialogue to be extended beyond the three current participants, UNICE (for the employers), ETUC (for the unions) and CEEP (for the public sector).

The report, which will be voted on during the Parliament's plenary session next week, also asks the Commission to give it a formal role in the dialogue, without treading on the toes of the social partners. If the partners fail to come to an agreement within the permitted time frame, the Parliament should be allowed to draw up a report of its own, argues Glase.

Welcoming the agreement, MEPs described it as “a fundamental breakthrough in equal opportunities”. But they say not all issues have been sufficiently well covered and are calling for adequate financial support and the maintenance of all employment rights during the leave period, underlining the importance of replacing workers on leave and of continuing social security rights during leave, and demanding a new directive on childcare.

The Parliament is aware it has no legal role in agreements reached under the social dialogue, and that it has only been asked to examine the draft accord because Social Affairs Commissioner Pádraig Flynn is aware of the political desirability of bringing MEPs into the process under the current “gentlemen's agreement”.

But MEPs are hoping their suggestions will be taken up when ministers adopt the main body of legislation, to which the social partners' agreement has been added in its entirety in a separate annex. While the parental leave agreement must be either wholly adopted or rejected by ministers, the Commission has added certain details to the main body of the draft directive which have been welcomed by the Parliament.

These include provisions preventing member states from watering down existing standards if they are higher than the EU norm, threatening punitive action for countries which fail to implement the directive and stressing the importance of an equal opportunities policy.

In its submission to the IGC unveiled last week, the Commission made no mention of the make-up of the social dialogue, specifying only that “the Social Protocol must be integrated into the Treaty, and clearer provisions laid down concerning cooperation between member states on matters of social policy ... Better ways must also be found of involving those sections of civil society capable of developing initiatives and new forms of solidarity”.

The Commission has consistently maintained that it is for the social partners themselves to decide who should be involved in the dialogue.