European Union News - Social Affairs

The European Commission's latest Employment and Social Situation Quarterly Review published by the European Commission shows that the employment and social situation in the EU remained critical in the fourth quarter of 2012 with employment receding overall and unemployment rising further. Among other things, the report highlights that the tightening of public budgets has adversely affected employment both directly through reduced public sector employment and indirectly through lower aggregate macroeconomic demand.

The Employment and Social Affairs Committee adopted a resolution which stressed that safeguarding public pensions to ensure decent living standards for all in old age must remain a priority in Europe. MEPs also emphasised that public pensions remain the most important source of income for pensioners.

5,271 workers in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Romania, Spain and Sweden will benefit from the just made payments from the European Commission. In particular, the total amount of €24.2 million will help workers in those countries back into employment, following their dismissals in a wide variety of sectors including automotive, motorcycles, mobile phones, metal products, electronic equipment and social work activities.

The European Commission published its statistics on road deaths in the European Union that show that 2012 saw the lowest number of people killed in road traffic in EU countries since the first data were collected. The countries with the lowest number of road fatalities remain the UK, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark.

Eurofound’s report finds that the destruction of employment during the crisis has been sharpest in mid-paying jobs, while sparing in large part jobs at either end of the wage distribution. Higher paid jobs in service sectors in particular have proved most resilient.

How to better involve workers' and employers' representatives in the governance of the EU and in particular, the Economic Monetary Union (EMU), was at the centre of the debate held with the occasion of the Tripartite Social Summit celebrated ahead of the European Council meeting.

A resolution adopted by the European Parliament in plenary session highlights how women are suffering most from the effects of budget cuts in social policies. Along with this resolution, MEPs also approved two more texts introducing the need to fight gender stereotypes in the EU and about the protection of the rights of women in North Africa.

The political agreement reached by the Council and the European Parliament's negotiators was formally adopted by the Council on 8 March. The regulation will apply to protection measures ordered with a view to protecting a person when there exist serious grounds for considering that that person's life, physical or psychological integrity, personal liberty, security or sexual integrity is at risk all over the European Union.