The event was hosted at the EESC, with the support of the Finnish Presidency of the Council. The speakers included Gabriele Bischoff, member of the European Parliament and newly appointed rapporteur on the revision of social security coordination rules, Petru Dandea, member of the European Economic and Social Committee and author of several resolutions on social security, Arnaud Emériau President of ESIP, Antero Kiviniemi, Social Affairs Councillor at the Permanent Representation of Finland to the EU, as well as Valdis Zagorskis, pension team leader within the European Commission.

Building on the ESIP memorandum for the EU 2019-2024, the debate focused on three major challenges ahead for social security systems: ensuring access to social protection to mobile persons, anticipating the impact of new forms of work and making the most of digitalisation.

The speakers agreed that there was a need for a more holistic assessment tool of the social impact of EU policies was underlined, building on the concept of economy of well-being put forward by the Finnish Presidency. The need to ensure that citizens and workers are put at the centre of EU social policy was also highlighted.

It also appeared that opportunities exist for cooperation on access to social protection in cross-border situations between social security institutions, trade unions and the newly created European Labour Authority. On the possibility to anticipate the impact of new forms of work on social security systems through more legislation, the tensions between the national exclusive competence on the design of social security systems and the potential added value of EU action in cross-border situations were put forward. Finally, our speakers underlined the potential of digitalisation to provide new tools for social security systems as well as to improve the traceability of new forms of work.

Find out more in the full report of the event.