Abstract
AbstractThe European Pillar of Social Rights is about delivering new and more effective rights for Europeans. It builds upon 20 key principles, structured around three categories: equal opportunities and access to the labour market; fair working conditions; and social protection and inclusion. Directly relevant to older people, the Pillar has the potential to address the multidimensionality of exclusion in later life from a rights-based perspective – for example, by enhancing the rights to quality and affordable health and long-term care, to adequate pensions to live in dignity, to age-friendly working conditions and an inclusive labour market, or to access goods and services. Despite these valuable elements, there remains significant uncertainly around how the Pillar will achieve this and what kind of implemental actions might emerge across member states. This chapter analyses the potential of the European Pillar to address social exclusion of older people in Europe, the challenges that might impede its efforts, and the measures necessary to overcome such challenges.
Highlights
Framed by an understanding of the role of the European Union in member states’ social policy making, this chapter has a focus on analysing the potential of the European Pillar of Social Rights to address social exclusion of older people, the challenges that might impede its efforts, and the measures necessary to overcome such challenges.To understand the place of European Pillar of Social Rights in the EU policy context and its most likely impact on policy making, it is helpful to consider the evolution of the EU’s evolving role in shaping national social policies since the beginning of European integration in the period that followed the Second World War
Principle 18: The right to “affordable long-term care services of good quality, in particular home care and community-based services” – this is a first such implicit reference made at EU level to the challenge of adequate support and assistance to older persons; this reflects the provisions of Article 25 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, recognising “the rights of the elderly to lead a life of dignity and independence and to participate in social and cultural life”
Considering the multiple crises that Europe has been facing over the last decade and growing public scepticism towards the European project, the proclamation of the European Pillar of Social Rights was a first attempt by EU institutions and member states to create conditions for greater fairness and solidarity at both the macro level and at the grass-roots level
Summary
To understand the place of European Pillar of Social Rights (the Pillar) in the EU policy context and its most likely impact on policy making, it is helpful to consider the evolution of the EU’s evolving role in shaping national social policies since the beginning of European integration in the period that followed the Second World War. Already the Treaty of Rome (1957), which established the original European Economic Community (EEC), today’s European Union (EU), contained first social policy measures, such as the free movement of labour and the provision of equal pay for men and women (Scharf 2010). Already the Treaty of Rome (1957), which established the original European Economic Community (EEC), today’s European Union (EU), contained first social policy measures, such as the free movement of labour and the provision of equal pay for men and women (Scharf 2010) These measures emphasised solidarity as one of the founding principles of European integration.
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