Потребителски вход

Запомни ме | Регистрация
Постинг
05.06.2012 12:01 - Social policy aspects of EU accession
Автор: polinastavreva Категория: Технологии   
Прочетен: 12517 Коментари: 0 Гласове:
0




Social policy aspects of EU accession

1. The term “social policy” in European Union policy

In the mid-eighties the European Commission launched the idea of “European social area”[1]. In contrast to the traditional term “social policy”, which usually includes activities of governments or international organizations in the social sphere, the new term covers new dimensions of the activities of all actors on the labour market. The national governments, the workers, the employers and their organizations are to one and the same extent interested in preventing unfair competition. It normally takes place in the form of reduction of salaries and social insurance, or the so called “social dumping”, which hinders the optimization of the economic capacity of the different countries.

The idea of harmonization of the social policies aroused a number of discussions and doubts because of the substantial differences in the social protection systems of the twelve member states. In spite of the differences in the institutions, the mechanisms and the criteria for access to these systems, in 1992 the European Council recognized the availability of common goals in the European social model[2], which were defined in Recommendation 92/144 on the convergence of social protection objectives and policies.

Principles of the social development

Here are some of the common principles of the social development:

  • The recognition and the effective exercise of the right to organize and to bargain collectively;
  • The existence of strong representative organizations of workers and employers;
  • The importance all countries attach to the improvement of the working conditions;
  • The trend towards unification of the social security and the social protection systems, etc.

The consolidation around these fundamental principles does not mean unification of the social policies. In support of this interpretation the term “coherence”[3] has been used in all EU documents on the harmonization of the social policies. The definition of minimal standards for protection of the social rights of the workers, the consolidation and the further development of the Community’s social legislation, the intensification of the European social dialogue are the main tools for realization of the coherence.

The Commission of the European Union ranks first among the activities in the social sphere

The leading role of the autonomous national social protection policies is balanced through the participation of the authorized international bodies, whose task is to ensure a unified and common direction of the activities in the social sphere. The Commission of the European Union ranks first among them. It possesses the monopoly over the legislative initiative and the control mechanisms on the enforcement of the legal acts3:

  • The constituent treaties of the European Communities and the Treaty on the European Union[4], regulating the basic rights of the citizens within the context of the goals of the Community;
  • The regulations, adopted by the European Council and the Commission of the European Union, which are binding for the member states[5];
  • The directives of the Commission and of the Council, containing binding goals, which the states apply to their national legislation by means of freely chosen legal tools;
  • The decisions of the Commission of the European Union, which are targeted at specific addressees (enterprises, groups of citizens or member-states) and are binding for them;
  • Recommendations and opinions, which are not binding, but promote the development of the national legislation of the member-states.

2. The Court of the European Communities

The Court of Justice of the European Communities[6] is another important participant in the process of coordination. It decides on concrete cases, related to the labour or security legislation, and its decisions are binding for the countries. Currently its decisions on the disputable cases serve as a reference point for the social security practice. The role of the Court of the European Communities is also connected with the promotion of public participation and the application of democratic principles to the development of the rules for coordination.

3. The social partners

The social partners take active part in the development of the rules for coordination, too. The Treaty on the EU establishes an Economic and Social Council, in which workers, employers and farmers are represented. It is a consultative body and it presents its opinions to the Commission to be taken into account in the process of exercising the legislative initiative or development of programs and measures in the field of social security and labour. Another form of three-partite participation is the Advisory Committee on Social Security for Migrant Workers, in which organizations of workers and employers are represented in accordance with article 82 of Regulation No1408/71[7].

4. Principles of the coordination of social policy activities

The rules for coordination are fixed in Regulation No 1408/71, amended and updated by Regulation No 118/97 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons, self-employed persons and to members of their family, moving within the Community. Some basic principles are formulated in these documents, such as:

  • Equal treatment of the nationals of all member-states;
  • Determination of the applied legislation;
  • Preservation of the acquired rights, etc.

The principle of equality of treatment underlies the most important legal acts, including Art 6 of the Treaty on the European Union[8], which prohibits any discrimination on the grounds of nationality. In respect of the social protection system this principle binds the member-states to grant the workers - nationals of other countries the same social security rights as their own nationals enjoy.

Regulation No 1408/71 extends the scope of this principle to the right of other countries` nationals to be elected in and to elect the representative bodies of the social security institutions. The countries outside the European Union can also make use of the right to equality of treatment, provided they have concluded agreements in the field of social security. Many of the countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific have such agreements. The cooperation agreements the European Union has made with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova contain provisions regarding the social security, but do not envisage sufficiently effective tools for their realizations Agreements with Switzerland, Egypt, Lebanon and South Africa are being currently negotiated.

The principle of determination of the applied legislation means only one legislation is applicable in practice. It is applied in cases of conflict between the laws that are in force in the respective field. Each member-state determines the scope of its national legislation through application of different criteria. Regulation 1408/71, however, uses unified criteria. They are of purely technical nature and do not concern the basic legal norms, providing for the acquirement or the loss of the security rights, which remain completely within the competence of the national legislation. In this respect those criteria are indirect; they do not lead to the solution of existing problems.

The technical provisions of Regulation 1408/71 are the point of support of the rules for coordination. They are applied in cases of both lack of social security rights (“negative conflict” between the national laws) and duplication of the social insurance (“positive conflict”)

In each of the above mentioned cases the legislation to be applied was determined on the basis of objective factors and took into account neither the subjective interest of the rightful claimants, nor the one of the country, whose legislation was applied. It was a guarantee for the sequence and the similarity of the applied criteria.

At the same time the Regulation admits the conclusion of agreements between the interested member-states with the aim of solving the cases, involving conflicts between the national legislation. This opportunity is also due to the intensity of the movement of workers between the member-states and it considerably increases the efficiency of the rules for coordination.

The principle of preservation of the acquired rights to the greatest extent guarantees the individual interests of the insured persons. In all member-states the access to benefits is connected with a certain length of service, insurance period and residence period, which are the preliminary conditions for the acquisition of security rights. The lack of these pre-conditions can bring about a loss of the security rights of the migrant workers. In order to avoid this, the length of service, insurance and residence are unified on the grounds of specific rules for equalizations. They are applied by the security institution at the place the security rights came into being and the respective national legislation is kept to.

5. Scope of the rules for coordination

An important characteristic feature of the coordination is its scope in terms of the persons, whose rights are protected by the rules for coordination of the social security schemes within the Community. Although this scope is different depending on the social security regime (pension insurance, health insurance, etc.) and in spite of the references to the national legislation in a number of cases, the Regulation No 1408/71 gives some explicit definitions, which are of binding nature.

First among them ranks the definition of an employed person, which has a central place in the Regulation. According to Art 1a) this term includes all employed and self-employed workers, all people insured against at least one of the security risks or within at least one of the social security schemes (compulsory, professional or voluntary insurance). There need not necessarily be labour relations; the availability of established insurance relations is the main criterion.

These measures to great extent facilitate the mobility and the exchange of activities between the educational institutions. Some special provisions of Regulation No1408/71 cover the emigrants and the persons with a refugee status. These specific measures contribute to the free movement of workers within the Community. The definition of the scope includes a number of categories of persons with a special regime of work: the people, working in the border regions, the season workers, the sailors, the technical staff of the diplomatic missions, etc.

6. Structural policy of the European Union in social sphere

A/ Principles of the structural policy

The social policy of the European Union is based on the necessity similar living and working conditions to be reached in all member-states. That is why it is aimed primarily at the change and the adaptation of the social protection measures in the countries or regions, lagging behind. The concrete tasks of the structural policy in the social sphere aim at alleviation of the most substantial differences in the national schemes and programs, facilitation of the free movement of workers, creation of prerequisites for increase of the level of employment and improvement of the working conditions, raising of the level of vocational training and promotion of the re-training and the reintegration of persons, who have lost their jobs because of structural economic changes or for other reasons of social importance.

In order to achieve the goals of its social policy, the European Union uses different instruments and mechanisms. These include a direct financial aid as well as consultations and scientific methods for assistance to the organization and management of the social schemes on local level. The European Social Fund is the main instrument for cooperation in the social policy, which allows the application

of a complex and integrated approach to the variety of problems and activities in the social sphere. It is one of the five structural financial instruments of the European Union6 for completion of the common goals and objectives for approximation of the economic and social development and assisting the underdeveloped regions.

The higher extent of economic and social integration led to the necessity to reform the structural funds, the European Social Fund inclusive, so that a more precise and coordinated allocation of resources and their harmonization with the activities of the European Investment Bank and the other financial instruments can be achieved.

B/ Instruments of structural policy

On one hand, the activity of the European Social Fund is aimed at implementing the principles of the reform, which are specified in the five priority goals, defined in Regulation of the Council 2052/88 of 24 June 1988 and confirmed by the end of 1999 in Regulation 2081/93 of 20 July 1993[9]:

  • Objective 1: promotion of the development and the structural adaptation of regions, lagging behind;
  • Objective 2: adaptation of regions, border areas and parts of regions (including urban areas), which are hit by industrial decline;
  • Objective 3: combating the long-term unemployment;
  • Objective 4: occupational integration of the young people;
  • Objective 5a: adaptation of the agricultural structures;
  • Objective 5b: promotion of the development of agricultural regions.

The main priorities, taken into account when allocating resources from the Fund are the fight against long-term unemployment and the occupational integration of the young people. These Objectives do not exhaust the purpose of the European Social Fund. The demand on the labour market is a derivative from the economic situation of the region, from the structural adaptation of the areas whose industry is lagging behind and from the development of the agricultural regions. That is why the European Social Fund practically takes part in the realization of each of the five Objectives and can be defined as the instrument with the largest scope of the structural policy.

On the other hand, the activity of the European Social Fund depends directly on the aims of the European Union in the social sphere, as defined in Art. 2 of the Maastricht Treaty[10]:

  • Maintenance of a high level of employment and social protection;
  • Improvement of living standard and quality of life;
  • Economic and social cohesion and solidarity.
  • The concrete texts in the Treaty, that regulate the specific Objectives of the integrated policy, concern all the basic social activities:
  • The standard of living and working conditions for workers (Art. 117);
  • Employment, social security and occupational health (Art.118);
  • Equal pay for equal work (Art. 119);
  • Development of the dialogue between the management and labour at European level (Art. 118B);
  • European Social Fund (Art. 123-125).

Equalizing effect of the activities of EU Social Found

Each of the member-states can be a beneficiary of the European Social Fund. The potential recipients of funds are not specified in advance and the conditions for access do not depend on the economic development or on the level of the gross domestic product of the country compared to the average level for the Community, as it is in the case of the Cohesion Fund, for example. In this respect the European Social Fund is not aimed at horizontal equalization of the economic risks, only, and that is why its direct re-distribution effect is weaker.

On the other hand, however, the earmarked nature of the projects, funded by the European Social Fund guarantees the precise targeting of the resources towards the regions, which are faced by the most serious difficulties with regards to employment and the income of the population. That is why the summary effect for the social-economic equalization and integration of the different countries and regions is not weaker than that of the other financial instruments of the European Union.



[1] Idea of “European social area”, http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/areas/industrialrelations/dictionary/definitions/europeansocialdialogue.htm

[2] Leibfried, St., Towards a European welfare state, in New perspectives on the welfare state in Europe, Jones, C. http://www.google.com/books?hl=bg&lr=&id=cK4OAAAAQAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA133&dq=in+1992+the+European+Council+recognized+the+availability+of+common+goals+in+the+European+social+model&ots=eQLY2bY-MV&sig=dTTFS2zoOiYo2plN44HKuxYWmWk#v=onepage&q&f=false

[3] Coherence as a concept in EU policy, Report on the EU Policy Coherence for Development and the ‘Official Development Assistance plus’ concept (2009/2218(INI))

 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&reference=A7-2010-0140&language=EN

[4] Treaty on the European Union, official documents site,  http://www.europe.bg/en/htmls/page.php?category=243&id=890

[5] Procedure for passing laws in the European Union, http://www.out-law.com/page-7766

[6] Court of Justice of the European Communities official site presentation  http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/Jo2_7024/

[7] Noncheva, T., Social policy aspects of Bulgarian EU accession., 1999, http://pdc.ceu.hu/archive/00002317/01/soc_pol_aspect_of_eu_acc.pdf

[8] Treaty on European Union (consolidated version) Article 6 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/hearings/20000222/libe/art6/default_en.htm

[9] Noncheva, T., Social policy aspects of Bulgarian EU accession., 1999, http://pdc.ceu.hu/archive/00002317/01/soc_pol_aspect_of_eu_acc.pdf

[10] Article 2 of the Maastricht Treaty http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/areas/industrialrelations/dictionary/definitions/socialprotection.htm





Гласувай:
0



Предишен постинг

Няма коментари
Търсене

За този блог
Автор: polinastavreva
Категория: Технологии
Прочетен: 244605
Постинги: 41
Коментари: 29
Гласове: 76
Архив
Календар
«  Март, 2024  
ПВСЧПСН
123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031