Bernadette Ségol

I am sad to see that Mr Nolda is of the view that our message to European citizens is that they have to lower their standards...and would like to have more discussion with him on this.  With such statement we only increase despair and we do not foster progress.  This absence of perspective is a danger for the construction of the European union.   I believe the EU is part of the solution and not part of the problem.  I can accept adaptation to new circumstances, but cannot carry the message that European citizens and workers are too well off.  We would really like other countries, in the world to benefit from social security, minimum wages, social dialogue etc....The European project  will not survive if we are not positive about our capacity to make it useful and an element of progress for people.

The debates on flexicurity must become much more concrete and, at national and/or at sectoral level, social partners can discuss what are the elements which constitute rigidity and what are the elements which are a legitimate protection for workers.  This is not an easy task, but we cannot, in general, declare that regulation, whether through collective agreement or through law, is rigidity.  Flexibility exists...and flexicurity cannot be reduced to easy hiring and firing.  Let me add also that security is not a rude word.  Security is necessary in workers' life, in citizens' lives, but also is necessary to employers;  security is a precondition for stability.   Who is benefiting from unsecurity?

Financing flexicurity is a key question.  We can no longer continue to speak about it without considering this aspect.  We know that social spending are decreasing in nearly all member states....Up to the middle of the 1990s there was a very close correlation between the level of economic and social development.  States with high per capita income levels provided the welfare state, measured by social spending levels, with more funding.  But cutbacks in social spending have been observed in most EU countries, both in the highly developed as in the less advanced countries.  So...with less social spending...how are we going to finance an acceptable flexicurity?  We also need in EU to make sure the promotion of the flexicurity goes hand in hand with acceptance that social spending must increase and not decrease.

All of us are saying that social dialogue is a key...and we are happy for the support we receive from the EU Commission on this.  However  trade unions, experience strong oppositions to genuine trade union organising in some countries and in some companies;  solid and representative trade unions are an asset to negotiate change and should not be fought against, but, on the contrary, they should be supported.  I accept that social dialogue is alive and active in some important EU countries...but it is far from being the case in all countries and all companies.  Individualisation of work and development of self-employment makes our task, as trade unions, much more difficult.  Recruiting and coordinating workers' interests in such circumstances is hard.  So please...don't argue, on the one hand for the social dialogue, and make it more difficult for trade unions to organise and represent a large diversity of members.