"Given the political significance of this European election year, ETUI and ETUC have chosen to provide a retrospective assessment of the state of Social Europe. Using fact-based evidence and analysis, the new edition of the yearly Benchmarking working Europe demonstrates that the new impetus for Social Europe which we have witnessed over the past five years has led to important and long-awaited policy initiatives such as the adoption of the Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages in October 2022. However, progress in this field remains fragile.

According to the authors of the Benchmarking Working Europe, the 'revival' of Social Europe has been driven by three factors: the Social Pillar; a novel approach to EU spending and temporary relaxing of the EU fiscal framework; and the commitment of the European Green Deal to just transition. While each chapter in these reports highlights how each of these drivers has been essential in relaunching the process of a more social European integration, it also shows the inherent fragility of the project itself.

Among the relevant legislative decisions, initiated by the adoption of the European Socle of Social Rights in 2017 and taken in the context of unexpected events, such as the Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the inflation and cost-of-living crisis, the report quotes:

-the Adequate Minimum Wages Directive
-the Platform Worker Directive
-the Pay Transparency Directive
-the Women on Corporate Boards Directive
-the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive
-the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive
-and several Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Directives, including the revision of the Asbestos Directive.
Background
The yearly ETUI-ETUC report Benchmarking Working Europe (henceforth ‘Benchmarking') has the ambition, since 2001, to diminish the knowledge gap about the world of labour and social affairs by providing a genuine benchmarking exercise, with workers' concerns at the centre of its analysis and policy proposals. "

Support: Digital;Paper

ISBN (PDF) : 978-2-87452-704-3

Legal deposit : D/2024/10.574/08