Strengthening EU cohesion and EU social policy coordination

Key points

• The European Economic and Social Committee believes that the horizontal social clause (HSC) can represent a major step forward towards a more social EU only if it is properly applied.
• It should not be limited in its scope or methods but, on the contrary, it must be applied across all relevant Union policies and activities, including economic ones, by both the EU institutions and individual Member States.
• The European Commission must ensure that the HSC is satisfactorily applied, and that it is referred to and fully taken into account in all relevant documents and judicial texts and plays a role in the fulfilment of the Treaty's new objectives by both the European Union and the Member States.
• The European Commission should further strengthen the overall role of social impact assessment within its general Impact Assessment System.
• The HSC must be applied to the broad fields and overall architecture of the new Europe 2020 EU socio-economic governance.
• Together with all of its sections, the EESC will therefore take the HSC – and all other legally binding horizontal clauses – into due consideration in its opinions and other work.
• In each of its opinions prepared for the European Commission or other EU bodies the EESC will consider in each case whether an adequate social impact assessment has been carried out.
• The Social Protection Committee, given its responsibility for EU coordination and cooperation in the social field, has a major role to play in ensuring a strong social dimension for the Europe 2020 Strategy and, more generally, in implementing a more social EU. It is critical that in the future it plays a full and equal role alongside the EU Economic Policy Committee and Employment Committee in the overall implementation and monitoring of the Europe 2020 Strategy.
• The EESC as well as the national economic and social councils and similar institutions in the Member States should play their part as stakeholders in the implementation of the HSC and social IAS by supporting European citizens' initiatives and citizens' projects in civil dialogue on social policy issues.