On 2 December 2014, SOLIDAR organised a one day event in the European Parliament entitled ‘The Ingredients for an Inclusive Jobs, Growth and Investment Agenda’ that featured three roundtable debates; Together for Social Europe, Economic and Social Futures and Building Learning Societies covering the key elements expressing our vision for a more inclusive jobs, growth and investment agenda.  Investment in social progress and lifelong learning is crucial if Europe is to move beyond its current precarious state. We need to work together to set a constructive agenda that promotes social justice in Europe and worldwide, as stated by Conny Reuter, Secretary General of SOLIDAR.

Summary of the debates:

Quality Employment

The global financial and economic crisis has caused new forms of inequalities to occur that affect the labour market, as emphasised by Maria Joao Rodrigues (S&D, MEP) during the round table. In addition, Duncan Tree (CSV UK) underlined that equality should be about giving individuals an equal start in society and stressed the enormous impact of health inequalities on the cohesion of societies. Employment can be considered as one part of the equation to fight the current state we are in. The complication doesn’t appear in the actual creation of jobs, however, but manifests in the creation of certain types of jobs. European Labour Mobility becomes more and more a matter of necessity, no longer a matter of choice or fair mobility. As a result of this concern, many speakers and participants during the various meetings expressed the need to heighten the focus on social and labour standards, although it is rather ambitious to realise, according to Egbert Holthuis (DG EMPL, European Commission), especially in the fields of employment and social protection. Ania Skrzypek (Senior Research Fellow, Foundation for European progressive Studies, FEPS) pointed out why ‘Austerity is European, Unemployment is national and poverty is individual’? Therefore, SOLIDAR remains persistent in demanding social investment in jobs, quality jobs however, with decent working conditions, equal pay for equal work and equal access to education. The difficulty is not simply in the creation of jobs and decreasing the unemployment numbers, it’s to make sure that the European standards are met, in all member States, in an equal matter.

Inclusive Growth

Growth always has a positive annotation to it. The new Juncker team aims at accomplishing growth in the upcoming five years through its investment plan. Throughout the three roundtables it was demanded that the type of growth receives more attention. The overall message was the need for social, inclusive and sustainable growth. Joβ Steinke (Head of Social, Employment, Europe of SOLIDAR member organisation Arbeiterwohlfahrt Germany) asked for social targets to be on equal footing as economic targets. Jutta Steinrück (S&D, MEP) supports this by saying “setting the social targets of the EU 2020 agenda as top priorities of Member States policies as well as improving the binding power of the social scoreboard in the European Semester”.  A rise of GDP is an economic accomplishment, however, is this economic indicator reflected in all layers of society or inclusive? Lord Roger Liddle and Patrick Diamond (Chair and Vice-Chair, Policy Network) underline in their presentation the correlation between employment, exclusion and the effects it has on the current state of divergence within Europe (see their presentation). SOLIDAR asks for social growth, based on solidarity, in which the benefits are not excluded to a select group of stakeholders, but include a redistribution mechanism allowing for a stronger establishment of social standards and hence common/ real growth.

Social Investment

European Commission President Juncker has presented its investment plan. Naturally, this topic was discussed thoroughly during the different roundtables, questioning several elements of the 10 point plan. Firstly, the social dimension of the plan is lacking. Philippe Lamberts (Greens/EFA, MEP) questions the political will in order to shift the current perception of policy making, in which, a social dimension should be a returning ingredient. Dirk Van Damme (Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress Division of the Education Directorate Skills, OECD), reminded the audience of an important aspect when talking about investment: “The social return of education is always higher than the public investment in education”. Jonathan Hill supports Van Damme’s conclusions, saying “Education is where people can grow to their full potential”. On top of that, it has been noticed that the investment plan seems to be put into place for one particular target audience. In which private investment is stimulated and secured, in order to stimulate this option which should lead to growth. We have questioned the type of growth in the previous paragraph, when it comes to investment we are questioning whether, even though the risks are shared, the profits are as well or as Conny Reuter (Secretary general, SOLIDAR) puts it “Socialisation of risks, privatisation of profits”.

Investing in education and training

Education and Lifelong Learning are redesigned with a greater focus on the labour market, either to keep the percentage low and ‘park’ the young generation suffering from the current state of the labour market, according to Ben Ansell (Professor of Comparative democratic Institutions, Oxford University) or to prepare one as much as possible in line with the labour market needs or employability considerations, a tricky development, as it is allowing education to distribute life opportunities within society. Therefore, SOLIDAR insists that to combat early school leaving and to meet diverse learning needs, there has to be investment in inclusive learning societies and a guarantee of equal access to education and training for all. As well as recognising and valuing skills and competences acquired in non-formal and informal learning.

The base for these debates can be found in the SOLIDAR Statement on Juncker’s Investment plan and the two policy recommendations that have been constructed in the light of the Europe 2020 Strategy Consultation, the one on social affairs can be found here, the one on education and lifelong learning you can read here.

The Conference Reports on the three roundtable debates can be found on our website; Together for Social Europe, Economic and Social Futures and Building Learning Societies.

The conference could be followed through #4InclusiveEU.

Photos of the conference can be found here.