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Contribution of AEIP to the Pensions Forum 17.12.2001

THE EUROPEAN PARITARIAN INSTITUTION OF SOCIAL PROTECTION (EPISP)

AEIP promotes the idea that the social partners should have the opportunity to create a European Paritarian Institution of Social Protection (EPISP) to manage collective covers provided outside and beyond the scope of Regulation 1408/71, so that initiative does not affect the territorial jurisdiction of the schemes coordinated by this regulation. EPISP will help meet the growing needs of occupational sectors and multinational groups in terms of cross-border social protection within the framework of the free movement of people, goods and services. The implementation, at European level, of mechanisms for solidarity justifies and legitimates the action of the social partners in this field because of their social concern for general interest.

THE CONCEPTS Paritarism

Applied to social protection, paritarism is a type of self-organisation of social relationships which, on the basis of equal negotiations, brings about agreements which are equally binding on both employers and employees. This kind of self-organisation goes from the paritarism of negotiation to the paritarism of management and results in various types of agreements, from adhesion to a particular form of cover to the creation of a paritarian institution.

What type of agreement?

Within a cover agreement with delegation, the social partners decide to adhere in a collective way to the cover offered by a mutual, commercial or paritarian organisation, which can ensure that the required service will be provided. They therefore participate in measures that are open to one or more enterprises. The collective nature of the adhesion means that better conditions of social protection can be negotiated than those that are generally available to individuals. For small and medium sized enterprises the cost of such cover can also be more attractive. The participation of the social partners may be limited to making sure that the aims set out in the agreement are always met in effectively.

In case of a cover agreement with creation of a legally autonomous institution of social protection, the negotiators are also the managers of the negotiated cover. With such a creation, generally on a non profit basis, the involvement of the social partners is at its most structured: they are responsible for both the content and organisation of social protection cover and for all decisions concerning the life of the institution itself. Individual small enterprises, which cannot create an institution by themselves, should be able to join an inter-enterprise paritarian institution or to get together to create a paritarian institution on a sectoral or geographical basis.

Paritarian Management
When a paritarian institution is created by a collective agreement, the social partners themselves manage the social protection cover. The same principles that underpinned the negotiation of the cover are also reflected in the management of the organisation: solidarity; transparency; the search for a consensus; and the balance of interests in the development of guarantees, taking into account the particular needs and constraints of the enterprise or professional sector. Paritarian management is achieved through the paritarian composition of its Management Board and/or its Supervisory Board. This paritarian set up is an institutionalised copy of the joint negotiation committee, which brought about the collective agreement and the institution. Under the authority of this paritarian Board, an administrative structure assumes responsibility for the daily management of the institution, either directly or by delegation. The non-profit making character of a paritarian institution guarantees that the two parties to the agreement pursue objectives beneficial to the general interest and that there is equality in all the financial aspects of the implementation of the agreement.

AT EUROPEAN LEVEL Current situation

Social negotiation at European level raises two problems;: How can the interests of employers and workers best be represented at European level? Currently there is no legal framework capable of defining how this should be done; How to apply an agreement negotiated at European level in the light of the differences in national legislation?

Challenges
A collective agreement at European level implies the introduction of rules or regulations that would: recognise the legal capacity of social partners in the various Member States to negotiate such paritarian agreements; ensure the recognition by the Member States of the validity of the European agreement in existing legal and conventional measures at national level. 2

How could such collective negotiation be achieved?

Within the European Social Dialogue, or in parallel, various options are available to initiate collective negotiations with a view to the creation of a European paritarian institution. AEIP proposes to start with the following scenarios: Scenario 1: using the European Confederation of Trade Unions ( ETUC), the Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederation in Europe (UNICE), the European Centre of Enterprises with Public Participation and of Enterprises of General Economic Interest (CEEP) and the European Union of SMEs Associations (UEAPME) as a platform to examine the obstacles which exist and the ways in which these might be overcome, beginning with the legal capacity of the social partners to negotiate social protection at various European levels. Scenario 2: using one or more professional sectors, to study the ways and means in which sectoral negotiation in the field of social protection might take place. Scenario 3: to examine how the social partners of a company operating at pan-European level could negotiate and implement a European paritarian agreement of social protection.. In all cases, a European collective agreement should both respect and be transposed into the social and labour legislations of each Member State concerned. The respect of this principle should be checked with the later adhesion of each new signatory, in particular from other Member States.

THE ROLE OF AEIP AS A TECHNICAL FORUM

AEIP is the direct result of the coming together of national paritarian organisations that are aware of the need to meet, to exchange information and to work together at European level. In the same spirit, AEIP can offer the social partners the necessary space to exchange information on the existing social protection cover in each country; to better understand and take account of transnational realities; and possibly to assist in setting up pilot projects on this subject.

THE EUROPEAN PARITARIAN MODEL OF MANAGEMENT OF SOCIAL PROTECTION

Occupational Sectors or Multinational Firms European-level collective bargaining Choice of the Social Partners

Creation Agreement

Delegation Agreement

European paritarian institution

Schemes / Funds accessible to European collective agreements

Paritarian participation at all levels: implementation of the agreement, investment strategy, administrative and financial management of the institution

Paritarian participation in the supervisory bodies: implementation of the agreement and investment strategy