On 8 March, the European Commission presented a first concrete outline of the European Pillar of Social Rights announced by President Juncker in September last year. It also launches a broad public consultation to gather views and feedback from other European institutions, national authorities and parliaments, social partners, stakeholders, civil society, experts from academia and citizens. The European Pillar of Social Rights will set out a number of essential principles to support well-functioning and fair labour markets and welfare systems within the euro area. Although this initiative is targeted at the euro area, other EU Member States are also allowed to join if they want to do so.

The results of the consultation will contribute to its final outline and help to identify the scope of future action where necessary. The consultation will run until 31 December 2016 and a consolidated version of the European Pillar of Social Rights should be presented early in 2017. Once adopted, the Pillar should become a reference framework to screen employment and social performance of participating Member States and to drive reforms at national level

More specifically, it should serve as a compass for renewed convergence within the euro area.

Social partners – both at EU and national level – will be invited to play an active role in shaping the Pillar. The first preliminary outline of the Pillar will be presented at the next Tripartite Social Summit, on 16 March 2016. In addition, the social partners will be consulted throughout 2016 on various occasions. EFEE will prepare a reply to the online public consultation and, if the opportunity arises, respond to the other social partner consultations.

The online consultation is available here.

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