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Two weeks after the start of its EU Presidency, Luxembourg will host the informal meeting of ministers for employment and social affairs (EPSCO council) taking place on 16-17 July. Once again, Social Platform has been invited to participate in this bi-annual event and to engage in an exchange with the ministers and other stakeholders. We will be sitting around the table with them to discuss youth employment as well as the labour market challenges for women and men.

In view of the discussions on youth employment, we prepared recommendations for members states on how to foster the sustainable inclusion of young people in the labour market beyond the Youth Guarantee. To achieve this, it is important to invest in sectors with a high potential for creating quality and sustainable jobs for young people, ensuring young people’s autonomy and inclusion in society, and supporting transitions between education and work as well as between jobs. As the youth unemployment crisis lingers on, nearly one out of four young people are still at risk of poverty and social exclusion. Given the nature of the challenges related to the Youth Guarantee, we must accept that targeted schemes like this alone will not tackle the youth unemployment crisis nor safeguard the well-being and sustainable inclusion of young people. Such schemes must be part of a long-term, ambitious and coherent set of policies and a broader social investment strategy.

When it comes to gender equality and the labour market, we want member states to address the challenges to women and men becoming equal earners and equal carers throughout the life-cycle. This requires ending discrimination in the labour market for all, eliminating the gender-segregation of labour markets and closing the different employment related gender gaps, as well as promoting the equal sharing of the responsibilities and costs of care. I can imagine the discussions on this issue will be quite lively since European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans announced last Wednesday [1 July] that the Commission will drop the revision of the maternity leave directive from the European Union’s agenda.

The Presidency has also scheduled a session to discuss the social dimension of the EU’s governance framework. Even though this session will be limited to ministers only, we welcome the ambition of the Presidency  to put social governance more prominently on the EU agenda. Current economic and social policies and processes are out of balance and do not suffice to reverse the breakdown of social Europe. As the EU and member states narrow their focus to growth, productivity and jobs, social cohesion and equality are lost. This narrow focus is reflected in the lack of a social counterpart to the EU’s economic governance framework and the limitation of the European Semester as a tool for mere economic policy coordination. We are looking forward to following up on the discussion on stronger EU social governance with the Presidency after the summer.

I hope that this informal EPSCO will show the Luxembourgish EU Presidency being a true champion for social Europe.