The ‘Turin process’ was launched by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe at the High-Level Conference on the European Social Charter. This Conference was organised in Turin on 17-18 October 2014 by the Council of Europe in co-operation with Italian Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the Turin municipality. The launch of the ‘Turin process’ took place a few weeks after the Secretary General placed  the reinforcement of the European Social Charter system as one of the seven priorities of his mandate for the period 2014-2019.

The ‘Turin process’ aims at reinforcing the normative system of the Charter within the Council of Europe and in its relationship with the law of the European Union. Its key objective is to improve the implementation of social and economic rights at the continental level, in parallel to the civil and political rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.

The main references of the ‘Turin process’ are:

  1. the General Report of the Turin Conference, established by Mr Michele Nicoletti, Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe,
  2. the ‘Brussels’ Document’, elaborated by a group of academic experts chaired by Prof. Jean-François Akandji-Kombé, General Coordinator of the Academic network of the European Social Charter and Social Rights, following the high-level Conference on the future of the protection of social Rights in Europe, held in Brussels on 12-13 February 2015 under the aegis of the Belgian Chairmanship of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers.

Within the Council of Europe, the Committee of Ministers is currently considering the proposals contained in these documents; in addition, a motion for a Parliamentary Assembly report on the ‘Turin process’ has been recently tabled by Mr Nicoletti.

This website contains detailed information on the General report of the Turin Conference, the ‘Brussels Document’, and resources and information related to the abovementioned high-level Conferences, as well as on the activities carried out in preparation or as a part of the ‘Turin process’.