What is it?
The Tripartite Social Summit aims to ensure the effective participation of the social partners in implementing the EU’s economic and social policies.
The European Union will never realise its ambitious economic and employment objectives without the active participation of workers and employers. So, to secure the involvement of these social partners, in 2002 the European Commission proposed setting up a `Tripartite Social Summit’ to assist in implementing the economic and social policies of the EU. The meeting takes place at least once a year, before the spring European Council meeting.
In 2000, heads of state and government launched the Lisbon Strategy, aimed at making the EU “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world” by 2010. The Tripartite Social Summit is designed to allow the social partners to make a bigger contribution to this strategy, and get their voices heard at the highest level of EU decision-making. In this way, they have a role in improving economic and social policies and monitoring progress.
The EU recognises the social partners’ crucial role in modernisation and managing change at all levels. The participants in the Tripartite Social Summit are:
Social partners: ETUC, BUSINESSEUROPE (private employers), UEAPME (small businesses), CEEP (public employers),
Heads of government of the current and two subsequent EU Presidencies,
European Commission.
The first official Tripartite Social Summit was held in March 2003 under the Greek EU Presidency. But three ‘unofficial’ social summits had already taken place before that: March 2001 in Stockholm; December 2001 in Laeken, Belgium; March 2002 in Barcelona.
A number of ‘extraordinary’ Tripartite Social Summits have also been organised. The first was in December 2003 in Brussels. In their joint message to that meeting, the social partners identified job creation as key to fulfilling the Lisbon agenda.
In October 2005, a special Tripartite Social Summit meeting also took place in London in advance of the Summit of EU leaders to examine the future of the European Social Model. At that meeting, ETUC General Secretary John Monks called for a stronger emphasis on social justice and cohesion in the EU’s response to the challenges of globalisation.
Useful links:
ETUC website
