On Monday 7 April 2014, Mr László ANDOR, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, gives a speech at the College of Europe Bruges campus, entitled 'Towards a Genuine European Labour Market'.
Abstract: As the EU tries to emerge from the longest economic crisis in its history, facilitating transnational labour mobility is one of the ways to help people find jobs and strengthen the recovery. Defending free of movement of workers against rising 'welfare chauvinism' is particularly important today: not only for economic reasons, but also to prevent a dismantling of the European project. Yet a 'genuine European labour market' needs to be more than a place where workers and jobseekers can – and are helped to – freely move: it requires upward convergence in the way national labour markets function, such as minimum requirements on employment and working conditions or quality of active labour market policies, as well as financial support to regions that are structurally less developed or suffer from a cyclical downturn. Recent legislative agreements on the posting of workers, the exercise of the right to free movement and the portability of occupational pensions are important achievements to prevent workers' abuses and reduce obstacles to labour mobility. 'Soft' measures such as country-specific recommendations, the Youth Guarantee or strengthened cooperation between Public Employment Services help address weaknesses of national labour markets, for which the reformed Cohesion Policy provides important financial backing. But more is needed, particularly in the context of monetary union: possible wage coordination mechanisms and countercyclical stabilisation instruments should be explored. Building a dynamic and inclusive labour market across Europe is a matter of economic efficiency, but also of maintaining cohesion and unity within Europe. It needs to work for everybody.
Biography
László Andor has been the EU's Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion since February 2010. Between 2005 and 2010 he represented Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Croatia on the Board of Directors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London. Previously he was an associate professor at Corvinus University of Budapest and King Sigismund College, editor of journals, and advisor to the Hungarian Prime Minister.
Hungarian national, Mr Andor graduated from the University of Economic Sciences in Budapest in 1989, studied at George Washington University, Washington, D.C., and earned a Master's degree in Development Economics at the University of Manchester in 1993 as a British Council Fellow. He holds a PhD in Economics from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
twitter @LaszloAndorEU.