SER - Economic and Social Council of the Netherlands

Netherlands

SER
President (as of 16/09/2022)
Kim Putters
+ 31 70 3 499 502
More information
Secretary-General
Jacqueline Prins
+ 31 70 3 499 503
More information

Contact

Bezuidenhoutseweg 60
NL-2594 AW The Hague
P.O. Box 90405 NL-2509 LK The Hague
Tel
+31 70 3 499 499
Fax
+31 70 3 832 535
Email
info@ser.nl
http://www.ser.nl/
Twitter

52.0857799, 4.3299348

The SER is the Dutch government's main advisory body for national and international social and economic policy, and as such represents the interests of employers and employees.
The SER is independent of the government and financed by the private sector. It may give advice, solicited or unsolicited, on all major social and economic issues.

Its administrative remit consists of monitoring commodity and sectoral boards, the public bodies that jointly represent employers’ organisations and trade unions within a particular sector. The SER also monitors compliance with the law governing works councils and supervises the Merger Code.

As an advisory and consultative body of employers' representatives, trade unions representatives and independent experts, the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER) aims to help create social consensus on national and international socio-economic issues.

The SER advises the Dutch government and parliament on the outlines of social and economic policy and on important legislation on social and economic issues. The SER’s advisory reports ideally have a dual role: to help shape cabinet policy to ensure it enjoys broad support from society and to help ensure the business sector operates in a socially responsible manner.

The SER’s advice is guided by the objective of social prosperity in its widest sense. This encompasses not only material progress (i.e., increased affluence and production), but also social progress (i.e., improved welfare and social cohesion) and a high-quality environment in which to live (i.e., environmental and spatial factors).

In its work, the SER is committed to detecting and interpreting signals from society. It offers various civil society organisations the opportunity to contribute specific expertise. The SER also shares information extensively with universities and policymakers in the Netherlands and abroad, and has regular contact with parliament and the various government departments.

The SER is made up of three groups of members: employers and employees (i.e. industry) represented by their central bodies, and a third group made up of independent (Crown) members, who are government-appointed experts. The SER has 33 members, eleven from each group.

Organisation and number of members

Employers' representatives
Vereniging VNO/NCW (Confederation of Netherlands Industry Employers)-7
MKB -Nederland (Royal Dutch Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises)-3
LTO- Nederland (Dutch Federation of Agriculture and Horticulture)-1

Employees' representatives
FNV (Federation of Netherlands Trade Unions)-8
CNV (National Confederation of Christian Trade Unions in the Netherlands)-2
Unie MHP (Trade Union Federation for middle and higher level employeesof Managerial and Professional Staff)-1

Crown members
Crown members are independent experts. They are often university professors, holding chairs in economics, finance, law or sociology. They are appointed by the cCrown, but are not accountable to the government.
The president of the Nederlandsche Bank (Dutch Central Bank) and the director of the CPB - Centraal Planbureau (Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis) are both Crown members.
The chairman of the SER is also appointed by the Crown, on the SER’s advice.

Ministerial representatives
All public SER meetings and most closed meetings of the commissions and working parties are attended by ministerial representatives as observers.
These officials are specialised in particular policy-making areas and it is thus possible to hold useful discussions with government departments.

The SER has a secretariat to prepare and oversee its numerous activities. It has a staff of about 120, headed by a Secretary-General.

The secretariat consists of:

- three Directorates

  • economic affairs
  • social affairs
  • administrative affairs

 

- three Staff divisions

  • financial affairs
  • human resources
  • communications

- one Facility management department.

The SER's working methods must be such that it can carry out its many tasks and give advice on a wide variety of subjects. To ensure that this is the case the SER is assisted in its work by a number of committees and a secretariat.

The SER has an executive committee to prepare and carry out its day-to-day work. In principle, the full SER meets on the third Friday of each month. The main items on the agenda are the discussion and finalisation of opinions to be submitted to the government or parliament.
Each opinion is prepared in detail by a committee or a working party. When not all points are agreed unanimously, the different views are set out in the opinion.
The plenary meetings of the SER are open to the public.

Committees
The SER has set up a large number of committees and working parties to prepare and carry out its work. Like the SER itself, committees are made up of three groups: representatives of employers’ organisations, representatives of trade unions, and independent experts. Committees are chaired in principle by a Crown member.

Related documents

Agreements

Netherlands

SER
Economy and Finance
Europe 2020
Industrial Changes
Transport and Communication

Energy Agreement for Sustainable Growth

The Energy Agreement for Sustainable Growth gives voice to the willingness of many parties to work on making our society and our economy sustainable. A sustainable energy supply is an indispensable component of that process. The agreement unites divergent interests and brings together more than forty organisations – including central, regional and local government, employers’ associations and unions, nature conservation and environmental organisations, and other civil-society organisations and financial institutions. It is based on the awareness that a long-term perspective means placing the common good far above the separate interests of either individuals or organisations and that it also means a growth path defined by energy and climate objectives as well as by feasible and necessary gains in competitiveness, employment, and exports.
LINKS: EN
LINKS: NL
Advisory Reports

Netherlands

SER
Labour

Broadening support for collective agreements

The collective agreement system currently enjoys satisfactory support. This system is vital for labour relations in our country. However, with a view to the future, parties to collective agreements must continue to work for broad support, e.g. by getting employers and employees more involved in collective agreements and particularly by engaging employees more effectively in the drafting of such agreements. These are the conclusions of an advisory report issued by the Social and Economic Council on 23 August 2013.
LINKS: EN
LINKS: NL
Advisory Reports

Netherlands

SER
Economy and Finance
Labour

Handmade in Holland (2013/02)

Abstract of advisory report With an annual turnover of 110 billion euros, the skilled trades are a vital link in the Dutch economy and society as a whole. In the next few years, however, skilled workers will be in increasingly short supply, mainly because fewer young people are opting to train for a skilled occupation. In an advisory report to the Dutch Government, the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER) is making recommendations to reverse this trend.
LINKS: EN
LINKS: NL
Reports

Netherlands

SER
Economy and Finance

Dutch economy in calmer waters: A macro-economic exploratory survey

Why is the Dutch economy finding it so much more difficult to recover from the financial and economic crisis than its neighbours? It is because the Netherlands – much more than neighbouring countries – is affected by the negative interaction between the housing market, the banking sector, and the pensions system. This exploratory survey attempts to clarify these macro-economic interactions. One important conclusion is that these problems are typically “Made in Holland” and will therefore need to be tackled with our own “Dutch Design”. SER’s exploratory survey Dutch economy in calmer waters: A macro-economic exploratory survey is has been presented by to the Ministers of General Affairs, Economic Affairs, Finance, Social Affairs and Employment, and Housing and the Central Government Sector.
LINKS: EN
LINKS: NL
Annual Reports

Netherlands

SER

Annual report 2012

The year 2012 was marked by a number of striking changes in and around theCouncil, with potentially far-reaching consequences. By that, I do not just mean thechange that is significant for me personally, namely my acceptance of thepresidency of the Council, as successor to Alexander Rinnooy Kan. Far moredecisive for the Council and the climate “in the polder” were the changes within theunion movement and the advent of the second government led by Mark Rutte. Atthe end of 2012, the media referred to a revival of the “polder model” (i.e. theconsensus model).
LINKS: EN
LINKS: NL