Brussels, 22 March 2023
EU leaders and social partners met at the Tripartite Social Summit. The main theme of the summit was: Giving the right answers to Europe’s competitiveness challenges – how to make Europe the place to be for industrial investments creating growth and quality jobs.
The summit participants intervened on the following issues:
- restoring a level playing field, ensuring a necessary competitive transformation in all industrial sectors and delivering an economically sound and just transition
- the Skills Agenda: mobilising the European Year of Skills to address recruitment problems and bridge the gap in access to skills and skills training
- making the Single Market more resilient and pursuing an ambitious trade agenda to build a highly competitive social market economy that delivers for all
The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said:
“We need to boost Europe’s competitiveness and support businesses and workers to drive our transition to climate neutrality. This is not only essential to ensure future prosperity and growth, but also quality jobs. We put forward the Green Deal Industrial Plan and the Net-Zero Industry Act to create an enabling environment for businesses to manufacture key technologies in the EU. At the same time, the best technology is only as good as the skilled workers who can install and operate it. This is why skills are a key pillar of our plan. The European Year of Skills will put a focus on skills development and the involvement of social partners is key to succeed.”
The President of the European Council Charles Michel commented:
“Today our European competitiveness is a major priority. The European Council has called for a swift, ambitious, and comprehensive European industrial policy response. Working in close cooperation with social partners, we need to bolster our competitiveness and growth through our twin climate and digital transitions, while generating quality jobs, making sure no one is left behind. Furthermore, the Single Market’s deep economic integration boosts the EU’s export competitiveness and free trade agreements remain a key way of opening new markets and maximising investment in innovation. At the same time, a skilled labour force must become the engine of our European competitiveness. The European Year of Skills is an opportunity to give skills development the prominence it deserves.”
From the side of the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, the Prime Minister of Sweden, Ulf Kristersson, added:
“To support Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion is the single most important task for the EU. Russia’s war has also broad-ranging consequences for the rest of the world. Europe is currently hit by high energy prices and inflation, leaving many businesses and citizens struggling. The Swedish Presidency seeks to make Europe Greener, Safer and Freer. We must build on the strengths of our economies to increase European quality of life, global clout and security. Increasing Europe’s competitiveness is key. Responsible social partners and effective social dialogue can contribute by absorbing labour market shocks and supporting up-and reskilling, thereby easing transition on changing labour markets.”
The General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) Esther Lynch, noted:
“European workers are currently suffering a huge cut in their purchasing power and living standards as a result of an inflation crisis caused by excess corporate profits, so there should be no race to the bottom in the name of competitiveness.
Instead, the best way to support European industry and its workers to increase productivity is by investing in technology and training and not through lowering wages or standards.
Productivity of European companies is primarily hampered by the fact that public investment is lagging far behind what is needed and that private investment as a share of GDP is currently half of what it was in 2000, while 50-60% of the workforce do not have the skills that our industries require and they are not given the opportunity to get training to acquire those skills.
The EU should follow the win-win approach to competitiveness being taken by the Biden administration in the US by investing in industry to ensure it is fit for the future while using social conditions to creating quality jobs and raising living standards.”
BusinessEurope’s President Fredrik Persson, representing employers (BusinessEurope, SGI Europe, SMEunited), commented:
“European leaders urgently need to improve investment conditions in the European Union to strengthen the competitiveness of European enterprises. The answer to Europe’s competitiveness challenges cannot be to engage in a subsidy race. The EU must address the pressing need to provide regulatory breathing space to enterprises, in particular to SMEs. It must support the transition to a green economy through targeted EU programmes, an effective and impactful spending of the Recovery and Resilience Facility and the NextGenerationEU and a more flexible and simpler temporary state-aid framework, while ensuring a level-playing field. It must address long-term challenges such as high taxes, underdeveloped capital markets, and a lack of investment in R&D and critical infrastructures. The European Year of Skills is a golden opportunity to address skills gaps and improve training systems’ response to changing labour market needs.”
The views cited in this text are those of the individual / organisation concerned and do not collectively constitute the point of view of the Council or the European Council.
Background
The Tripartite Social Summit takes place twice a year ahead of European Council meetings. It is co-chaired by the Presidents of the European Council and the Commission and attended by the Head of State or Government representing the Presidency of the Council of the EU. It is an opportunity for a constructive exchange of views between the leaders of the European institutions, the leaders of European social partners, and national employee and employer organisations of the current and upcoming Presidency countries (Sweden, Spain and Belgium), as well as the Employment and Social Affairs Ministers of these Presidency countries.
The views cited in this text are those of the individual / organisation concerned and do not collectively constitute the point of view of the European Commission.
Statement by EU Commission President von der Leyen following the Tripartite Social Summit
Brussels, 22 March 2023
Thank you very much, indeed we had a very productive meeting, a very good Tripartite Social Summit. And it was symbolic I think, and it showed the strength of our cooperation. The discussion today confirmed that we have more or less a common view on competitiveness and the importance of competitiveness. Competitiveness in a sense that it ensures on the one hand prosperity and growth, and on the other hand quality jobs in Europe, so what the hallmark of our social market economy is. And this is happening against the backdrop of growing challenges through climate change.
Our first focus was on the proposals tabled by the Commission last week, and this is mainly the focus on the clean-tech industry, our Green Deal Industrial Plan. We discussed with the social partners the proposals to keep Europe in a pole position in the clean-tech economy and to secure good-quality jobs in Europe. And it is very clear from our discussion, we also felt that Europe has to accelerate. This is the essence of the Net-Zero Industry Act. With the Net-Zero Industry Act, we want to make the European Union the home of clean-tech industries. We are setting clear targets. And we are planning to achieve the targets with speed, with simplification and with funding. This is a very clear message to our clean-tech sector and for quality jobs in Europe.
The second proposal is about the Critical Raw Materials Act. To succeed in the green and digital transitions, we need to secure access to critical raw materials. We need to strengthen and diversify our supply chains. The Critical Raw Materials Act looks at what is needed domestically to improve refining, processing and – very important – the recycling of critical raw materials in Europe. But it also looks of course at the global stage, for example, the proposal to create a critical raw materials club with reliable partners. Important for the topic of reliable partners is that it will bring jobs in our industry, but also to our reliable partners, with highest standards for working conditions and protection of the environment. This is, in connection with the critical raw materials, crucial and essential for us.
Centrepiece of our discussions was the topic of skills. We need a skilled workforce to create and keep quality jobs in Europe. And those jobs need to be attractive to workers. So skills are part and parcel of our Green Deal Industrial Plan. We need to develop clean-tech skills – for batteries, for solar, for hydrogen, you name it, all these topics. And here, the social partners have the important role to play. You, the social partners, know best how to match people’s aspirations and their skills with the companies’ needs. That is a very fine web that has to be woven. So our skills agenda relies very much on the social partners’ dialogue. It is accompanied by massive investment on the European level in skills of around EUR 65 billion from our MFF and NextGenerationEU.
Finally, our hallmark in Europe is our social market economy. As I said at the beginning, this balance between prosperity and economic success on the one hand, and social responsibility and protection on the other hand. This is the source of the success of the Single Market. It has been the backbone of the Single Market over 30 years now. And these balanced solutions too are found between social partners and a legislative framework that respects the strong roles of social partners. That is in my view the recipe for success. Therefore, our competitiveness strategy goes hand in hand with a strong social agenda.
Thank you very much for the very fruitful Tripartite Social Summit.
Source – EU Commission