Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven Wants a European Scorecard For Workplace Fairness

Together with President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven will host a social summit in Gothenburg on 17 November 2017, focusing on promoting fair jobs and growth.

The Social summit for fair jobs and growth will gather heads of State and government, social partners and other key players to work together on a more social Europe and to promote fair jobs and growth.

Well-functioning and fair European labour markets, effective and sustainable social protection systems and the promotion of social dialogue at all levels will be at the heart of the summit agenda

Stefan Löfven started his career on the factory floor. This Friday the welder-turned-Swedish-prime minister co-hosts the EU’s “social summit for fair jobs and growth” in Gothenburg, which he hopes can super-charge both his electoral fortunes and Europe’s welfare systems. Co-hosting the summit is European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who has made the construction of an EU “social pillar” one of his pet projects.

Stefan Löfven wants to put traditional center-left issues back at the top of the agenda. for Löfven and other European Social Democrats, this is a chance he says to put traditional center-left issues such as working conditions, equality and welfare for the unemployed back at the top of the agenda and turn back the tide of populism that seems to be engulfing them.

The Social Summit will discuss a scoreboard to rate EU countries’ performance, linked to the system already in place for monitoring economic performance on key indicators such as debt and deficits. Countries will be rated in areas such as equal opportunities in the job market, upward mobility, living conditions, the structure of the labor market, and the provision of services and social protection.

Löfven is not so naïve as to suggest that all of Europe should aspire to the Swedish model, with its well-established dialogue between employers and workers that has helped to produce “20 years in a row of wage increases.” But, he argues, “the social dimension is a prerequisite for a sustainable Europe.”

Image: Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven seeking workplace fairness.