The European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) today published its annual conclusions for 2017 in respect of 33 States Parties (European Social Charter (1961) and European Social Charter (revised) (1996)) showing 175 violations (36%), 228 situations of conformity (47%) and 83 cases (17%) where the Committee was unable to assess the situation due to lack of information, known as “deferrals”.
These conclusions concerned the articles of the Charter relating to the thematic group “Health, social security and social protection”:
- the right to safe and healthy working conditions (Article 3),
- the right to protection of health (Article 11),
- the right to social security (Article 12),
- the right to social and medical assistance (Article 13),
- the right to benefit from social welfare services (Article 14),
- the right of elderly persons to social protection (Article 23),
- the right to protection against poverty and social exclusion (Article 30).
The Committee expressed concern over the fact that, in many countries, poverty rate in Europe is unacceptably high and the measures taken to remedy this fundamental problem are insufficient. In particular, in many States the social security benefits (notably in respect of unemployment and old age) are well below the poverty line, even when taking into account social assistance, which remains too low.
In addition, the Committee found that many States had failed to take adequate steps to address the persistently high levels of infant and maternal mortality and to reduce the high number of fatal accidents at the workplace.
The Committee examined the State reports of the following 33 countries: Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Spain, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, Turkey, Ukraine and United Kingdom.
State reports of Greece, Iceland and Luxembourg could not be examined because they were not submitted on time. The conclusions in respect of these countries will be published in the course of the year.
Background:
The European Social Charter is a Council of Europe treaty signed in Turin on 18 October 1961 which safeguards day-to-day freedoms and fundamental rights: housing, health, education, employment, legal and social protection, freedom of movement for individuals, non-discrimination. The substance of the Charter was supplemented by a revised version of 1996.
The European Committee of Social Rights is a body composed of 15 independent and impartial members. It rules on the conformity of the law and practice of the States Parties with the Charter. The Committee has two procedures to ensure that States Parties comply with their commitments under the Charter: national reports and collective complaints. In the framework of the reporting procedure it adopts “conclusions” and in respect of the collective complaints procedure it adopts “decisions”. A Protocol opened for signature in 1995, which came into force in 1998, allows national and international trade union organisations, employers’ organisations and non-governmental organisations to submit to the Committee their complaints about violations of the Charter.
