The last European elections took place in a context of historical crossroads. For democrats across Europe, the result was bittersweet. On the one hand, European citizens avoided an incontestable victory of the reactionary wave, but there has been an evident shift to the right in the composition of the European Parliament. Likewise, as Chris Bickerton states, the extreme right has gone from the most strident Euroscepticism to a lukewarm reformism, a normalization that is no less worrying, with also devastating consequences for the European social majorities.
In Brussels, Gatopardism offers a small consolation: everything seems to change so that, in reality, nothing does. The old balances are preserved, preventing, at least, the European project from falling into the hands of those who wish to dismantle it. Under this logic, the proposal for a new European Commission arises, which inevitably produces mixed feelings. On the one hand, the good news: Teresa Ribera will be an exceptional commissioner, consolidating Spain’s leading role in Europe and ensuring that the fight against climate change remains a priority — despite the Popular Party’s attempts to discredit its own country-. On the other hand, the bad news: the most reactionary right will have its share of power with Raffaele Fitto, a concession facilitated by social democracy itself. And it is not the only obstacle.
The Commission’s initial proposal included labor and social issues in a portfolio called ‘People, Skills, and Preparedness’, explicitly omitting references to labor and social rights in its title for the first time. since the Treaty of Rome. This approach aroused significant opposition, both inside and outside the European Parliament, as it meant making essential issues invisible to millions of working people. We couldn’t allow it.
Thanks to the pressure exerted by numerous actors and the determined action of civil society, a significant change has been achieved: the portfolio will now be called “Quality Jobs, Social Rights, Education, Skills, and Preparedness”. This change in the name sends a clear and forceful message about the priorities of the European Union and its commitment to the well-being of working people.
I fully trust the person chosen for the task, the Romanian social democrat Roxana Mînzatu, and I am pleased that this portfolio appears as vice presidency, with the relevance and visibility that this gesture entails. However, and although this name change is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, we must be aware of the dangerous implicit message that President Von der Leyen was sending with the previous name since, despite the change, it is expected that the same logic will remain. .
The insistence on “skills” that has been installed in Europe in recent years is based on a conservative reading of the world of work, according to which the problems of precariousness, the epidemic of low wages or the difficulties in finding employment are attributable not to legislators or employers, but to the lack of skills on the part of working people. This approach involves shifting responsibility from the strong part of the equation to the weak part, making it guilty of its own conditions. I know this very well on a personal level: when the Popular Party occupied the Ministry that I have the responsibility of leading today, they also deprived it of its name, at a time when it was common for newspapers not to have a Work section, only Money and Economy. In short, this logic reproduces the neoliberal dogma that caused so much pain in my country and in Europe, and which also proved to be failed and inefficient.
Training is an area in which I have paid special attention in the last four years, from Brussels or Luxembourg. I have been the main defender of promoting a directive that effectively recognizes the right to training throughout the working life of all people, employed and unemployed, that guarantees its duration in time and the conditions for its exercise, both during the working day and outside of it, in the form of paid permits or licenses for training. I have also insisted on the simplification of national systems of accreditation, certification, validation and homologation of skills acquired in other Member States, as well as on the role that collective agreements must play in the articulation and development of this right. At the same time, I have reiterated the need to increase the resources of the European Social Fund allocated to vocational training at work.
In short, I firmly believe in the centrality of training so that the double green and digital transition is also fair, but Europe cannot allow itself to return to discourses that have proven outdated and dysfunctional. We have to be consistent: it is in times of uncertainty when it makes the most sense to bet on what we know works. Precisely for this reason, the priority of this portfolio – now called “Quality jobs, social rights, education, skills and preparation” – must be shaping a Labor Europeanism that puts labor rights and the interests of working people at the center. center; that talks about codifying the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights to make them binding; that defends, as European unionism does, a Protocol of Social Progress that makes social rights prevail over the privileges of a few; to continue and take further the progress made in recent years, such as the Adequate Minimum Wages Directive.
In the management of the pandemic we demonstrated that austericide is not inevitable; that things could be done differently to improve people’s lives. We still have time to do things right. We have the opportunity, therefore, to ensure that this change in the name is translated into ambitious and clear commitments to action, in which the rights of workers throughout Europe are prioritized.
We cannot allow ourselves a déjà vu of 2008: it would be the best food for the extreme right. The well-being of the social majorities and the future of the Union itself are at stake. This change in the name of the portfolio is a step in the right direction, but the real challenge lies in turning words into action and putting social and labor rights where they should always be: at the heart of the European project.
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