Opinions

The EESC welcomes the Commission Communication and the Commission proposal for a Recommendation on strengthening social dialogue in the European Union. The Committee is fully aligned with the view that social dialogue can be a beneficial tool to drive economic and social resilience, competitiveness, and sustainable and inclusive growth. Establishing a common effective framework, to be implemented at national level for the involvement of social partners, might help ensure that effective and quality consultations with national social partners take place.

The EESC:

• believes that the non-mutual recognition of disability among EU Member States, by hindering the availability of support measures for persons with disabilities traveling to another member State, implies a  denial of their freedom of movement.
• Recommends that the EU Disability Card is implemented by a Regulation, that PWDs and their organization are fully involved in each step leading to its implementation and monitoring, and that complementary measures are taken to ensure  accessibility of transport, services and of the built environment and compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation
• Believes that the EU Disability Card and EU parking Card remain physically separate

This opinion underlines that the Social Imbalances Procedure (SIP) would offer an opportunity to improve the coordination of national efforts to achieve upward social convergence. It recommends that the SIP should be integrated into the European Semester, throughout its different phases. The opinion proposes social imbalances to be defined as the critical situations identified by the social scoreboard and clear deviations from the path towards achieving the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan targets. It also suggests that the Commission and the Member States consider making existing rules for funds allocation more flexible so that they can be quickly adapted to current societal challenges and critical situations identified in the implementation of the SIP.