The Contested Value of International Social Security Standards in the European Union
| Author | Tineke Dijkhoff |
| DOI | 10.1177/138826271201400302 |
| Published date | 01 September 2012 |
| Date | 01 September 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
174 Intersentia
THE CONTESTED VALUE OF
INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SECURITY
STANDARDS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
T D *
Abstract
Because social security is one of the policy areas that belongs to the exclusive
competence of the EU Member States, normative EU legislation in this eld is
lacking. In an attempt to limit disparities in social protection within the EU, the
European Commission advocated the acce ptance of international (minimum) social
security standards by acce ssing states before they entered the EU. At the same time,
these international standards are being criticised: they are regarded as outdated
and lacking legal power, and therefore not useful to modern European countries.
is ambiguous position in respect of the standards calls for an investigation into
their (ir)relevance for the European Union on the basis of actual cases. is article
will rst give an overview of the di erent standards. e n, their position within the
EU and their impact on national social security provisions will be discussed on the
basis of case studie s. Problematic issues arising from the c ase studies will be analysed
to determine whether the problems con rm the criticism that the international
standards are not suitable for well-develope d welfare states. Finally, conclusions will
be drawn on the value of the international standards for th e EU.
Keywords: Council of Europe; ILO Conventions; international social security
standards; soci al protection; solidarity
1. INTRODUCTION
International social security standards are not very popular in the European Union.
As a matter of fact, the di erent standard-setting instruments, developed by the
* Tineke Dijkho is a Senior Resea rcher at Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Soc ial Policy;
address: Ama lienstraße, 3, D-80799 Munich, Germany; tel: +49 89 38602408 , e-mail: dijk ho @
mpisoc.mpg.de.
e Contested Value of Internat ional Social Sec urity Standard s in the European Union
European Jour nal of Social Secu rity, Volume 14 (2012), No. 3 175
International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Council of Europe, are subject to
criticism from several quarters. Policy makers, as well as academics, have argued,
for example, that they are outdated, l acking the exibilit y needed for adapting social
security systems to changed economic and societal conditions, discriminatory,
prescribing bene ts that are too low for the European context, and lacking legal
power.1 It must be said that these points of criticism are, in general, not well-
substantiated, par ticularly those relating to the Conventions being outdated, a nd that
several criticisms have been refuted.2 Still, considering the fact that the standards
basically date f rom the 1950s, most points of criticism seem plausible.
At the same time, this negative picture does not square with the fact that almost
all EU countries have rati ed minimum social security standards (at least), and that
the European Commission actively promotes them among the Member States, and
has even put a lot of pressure on the Central a nd Eastern European countries to acc ept
the standards before entering the EU.3 Furthermore, as recently as 2011
4, the ILO
Conference, which includes all EU Member States, has re-a rmed the value of the
‘up-to-date’ social security conventions,
e ambiguous position in respec t of international social security st andards calls
for an investigation into the issue on the basis of concrete cases. is ar ticle seeks to
discover the trut h about the (ir)relevance of the standards with in the EU context. Is the
expressed criticism c orrect, and are the standards, br ie y summarised , outdated and
lacking legal force, or should we simply promote and rati fy them? e article is mainly
based on the di erent studies on the impact of international standards on national
social secur ity within the EU th at have been carried out to date, on observations of the
ILO Committee on the Appl ication of Conventions and Recommendations regarding
speci c countries, on several doc uments published by the ILO in lig ht of the recurrent
international discu ssion during t he last decade on the e xtension of social protection,
and on reports and other com munications of EU institutions.5
e art icle is structured as follows. Section 2 provides a t heoretical framework by
giving a general over view of the international social secu rity standards and outlin ing
1 Langendonck (2009: 217–218); Bierweiler (2007: 179–180); Kulke, Cichon and Pal (2007: 18–28);
Nußberger (2007: 110); Pennings and Schu lte (2006); Servais (2005: 311); Lamarche (200 2: 95); ILO
(2001c: 10–11); Von Maydell and Nußberger (1996: 188, 204). In response to a quest ionnaire on
the obstacles a nd di cu lties regarding Convention No. 102 sent by t he ILO to the Member States,
changed societ al values and political obstacles were indicated as reasons for non-rati cation by
several govern ments: ILO (2008: 38); ILO (2001c: point 338).
2 Pennings and Sc hulte (2006); ILO (2001c); Von Maydell and Nußberger (1996); Riedel (20 07).
3 Schoukens (2007: 94); Leppi k (2007: 129); Murray (2002: 49–51); Tomes (2002: 79).
4 ILO (2011b).
5 Betten and Devitt (1996); Council of t he EU (2007); Dijkho (2010); Dijkho (2011); European
Commission (1994); European Commission (2004); European Parliament (2009); European
Commission a nd ILO (2008); Hofman and Penni ngs (2008); ILO (2001a); ILO (2001c); ILO (2008);
ILO (2011a); Korda (forthcoming); Kul ke (2007); Orbie and Lisa (eds .) (2009); Pennings (ed.) (2006);
Pennings (ed.) (2007); Yorens (ed.) (2002); Von Maydell and Nussberger (eds .) (1996).
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