The meeting in Dublin of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) in early June heard calls for a renewed focus on the creation of decent jobs and on coordinated efforts to tackle youth unemployment across the European Union.

ETUC leader, Bernadette Ségol, emphasised the need for movement towards a Social Europe which has been overtaken by initiatives to liberalise, deregulate and get workers to compete downwards on wages and working conditions.

She pointed to the empty rhetoric of EU leaders about going beyond austerity and stimulating new growth and jobs and said that these will not convince citizens as long as real policies keep concentrating on ‘structural reforms’ which weaken the social dimension of the economy.

Social Europe must be at the core of all economic decisions and is not an optional appendage to economic governance, she argued.

Segol also warned that trade union support for the EU project was based on the promise of social progress and full employment and not only on economic integration.

Without a major investment programme to restore sustainable growth and movement towards a Social Europe the continued support of the ETUC for the European project cannot be taken for granted, she said.