In early January French MEP Guillaume Balas submitted a draft own-initiative report on social dumping in the European Union (2015/2255(INI)) to the Committee on Employment & Social Affairs of the European Parliament.
The draft report contains a number of recommendations in key areas such as:
- reinforcing controls and coordination between Member States;
- addressing regulatory gaps in order to implement the principle of “equal pay and equal social protection for the same work”;
- moving towards social convergence, notably coordinating social security systems.
The draft report calls on the European Commission to submit a proposal for a directive on labour inspection. It also recommends Member States to increase the human resources of their labour inspectorates and to create a European body of cross-border labour inspectors, in coordination with the recently voted proposal of a Platform against undeclared work.
The draft text has already created heated debate within the EP, having thus the merit of replacing this issue at the centre of the discussion.
EBC meets with rapporteur Guillaume Balas
EBC did not present any formal amendments, because it supports the current draft text. However, EBC President Patrick Liébus and EBC Secretary General Riccardo Viaggi met with rapporteur Balas on 17 February to present him with construction SMEs’ problems and suggestions regarding social dumping, especially related to posting of workers.
They informed MEP Balas of EBC’s support to most of his proposals, even more as his report takes into consideration many points of the EBC open letter to Commissioner Thyssen published in October 2015. EBC will closely monitor the process of discussion and adoption of this Report.
Next steps in the European Parliament
The deadline to table amendments to the report is March. The Employment Committee of the European Parliament is expected to discuss them in its sitting in April, whereas the Parliament first reading should take place at the June plenary session.