“Protecting and fostering social rights and the welfare state are indeed essential for effectively safeguarding democracy and democratic institutions”, underlined Prof. Giuseppe Palmisano, President of the European Committee of Social Rights at the exchange of views he held with the Council of Europe Rapporteur Group on Social and Health questions (GR-SOC) on 17 January 2019 in Strasbourg. He added that “the protection of social rights and social justice are per se highly important, and should properly be considered as fundamental democratic institutions; not less than the existence and functioning of sovereign legislative parliaments, the right to free and genuine elections, the principle of equality before the law, or the right to a fair trial by an independent judiciary”.
Against the current challenges facing our society today (economic uncertainty, migration etc), “consensus is progressively gathering around the idea that there is an urgent need both to bring the European instruments for the protection of social rights back to the centre of the European legal and political stage, and to enhance existing synergies, at the European level, to better protect social rights and strengthen the European model, centred on respect for social rights and advanced welfare systems”.
In this respect, “the revised European Social Charter has been rightly recognised as a living, integrated system of guarantees, whose implementation at national level has the potential to reduce economic and social tensions, and promote political consensus to facilitate the adoption of the necessary reforms”, said Prof. Palmisano.
- Full text of the intervention of Professor Palmisano before the GR-SOC
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