On 9 October 2023 the Council approved Conclusions on social protection for the self-employed, in light of the Recommendation on access to social protection for workers and the self-employed approved in 2019 and of the Report of the Commission of the state of implementation of the Recommendation.
The Report of the Commission contains some important evidence on the state of implementation of the Recommendation, which is currently very uneven across Member States. Access to, effectiveness and adequacy of benefits is unsatisfactory under many aspects in many Member States and mostly for groups such as women, platform workers, non-standard workers and the self-employed in general. Eurostat confirms that the self-employed are also more exposed to poverty and social exclusion.
In 2022, more than 15 million out of 27.7 million self-employed people in the EU did not have access to unemployment benefits in the event of cessation of activities. And the vast majority of the self-employed is represented by solo-self-employed workers and/or economically dependent on one main client. This should have raised concerns about a high level of tax/social security contributions avoidance and social dumping.
The ETUC welcomes the Council’s invitations to carry out certain actions made by the Council to the Member States, SPC and European Commission but finds them insufficient to tackle the issue of lack of substantial social protection reforms able to ensure access, effectiveness and adequacy of benefits to all.
In such a scenario, the ETUC had predicted the very low take-up rate of social protection schemes by the self-employed, as a consequence of the voluntary approach adopted by the Council Recommendation. In addition, the Recommendation did not introduce any minimum requirement for quasi-private social protection schemes in guaranteeing universal access to benefits.
The poor ambition of the Recommendation is also proven by the low or even inexistent commitment by MS to address the existing gaps in social protection systems and in the further efforts needed.
The ETUC insists on the importance of tackling the problem of tax/social security contributions evasion and avoidance in all Member States, which is detrimental to the adequacy and financial sustainability of social protection systems.
The ETUC reiterates that that the Council should:
- Endorse the policy recommendations of the High-level Group Report on the Future of social protection and of the welfare state in the EU and propose coherent policy measures
- Consider revising the Recommendation so that self-employed workers are required to join social protection schemes with contributions at the same level as employees
- Issue a position in the framework of the European Economic Governance Revision, coherent with the findings and the preamble of the Conclusions, allowing Member States to engage in structural social protection reforms