COFACE Families Europe’s member organisation, the Union Nationale des Associations Familiales (UNAF), has shared its feedback on the European Commission’s new action plan designed to advance the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights.
The European Pillar of Social Rights is the EU’s blueprint for a fairer and more inclusive Europe that protects its citizens while contributing to better living and working conditions. The new action plan aims to go further in implementing the European Pillar of Social Rights and help EU countries, within the parameters of their social models, reach the EU’s 2030 headline social targets.
The Union of National Family Associations (UNAF) is an organisation representing all types of families in France, and the official spokesperson of the 18.6 million families living in France. It is one of the major organisations of the French organised civil society and a member of COFACE Families Europe.
Among the sub-objectives to be achieved, the Commission highlights in its call for contributions its concern to reduce the gender gap in employment, to increase the availability of early childhood education and care, and to reduce child poverty. These stated priorities appear to UNAF as systemically inseparable from Pillar Principle 9 on work-life balance.
UNAF recalls that services, benefits, leave entitlements and working conditions making parents professional life compatible with their family responsibilities are crucial to reducing child poverty: the absence of employment of one or both parents is, in France, the main determinant (though not the only one) of child poverty. In this respect, UNAF echoes the attention given by the Council to children from households with very low work intensity in Recommendation 2021/1004 establishing the European Child Guarantee, as well as Eurostats conclusions on the key role of employment intensity in poverty. Facilitating mothers and fathers access to quality jobs that allow for family life is, in our view, essential if France is to contribute effectively to the pursuit of the 2030 objective of reducing the number of children in poverty.
Furthermore, the call for contributions on the European Pillar of Social Rights stresses the need to take account of demography. Work-life balance also reminds us that Member States can act on it. Thus, the Toolbox for action on demographic change in Europe (COM/2023/577) , published by the Commission in 2023, states that “Everyone should be supported to be able to choose both a career and a family”. It also recalls that many people, when asked, indicate they would want to have more children than they actually do. Key elements explaining the gap between actual and desired family size include the difficulty to reconcile work and care responsibilities and persistent gender inequalities, as well as economic and social insecurity linked to employment prospects. This gap is also observed in France, and the expectations of people wishing to expand their families largely concern work-family reconciliation measures.
From this twofold perspective, UNAF would like the future action plan for the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights to focus on two particular points:
- Speed up the transposition of Directive 2019/1158 on work-life balance for parents and carers, in particular the right to request flexible working arrangements, and access to adequately compensated parental leave.
- Specify and quantify the objectives of affordability and quality for early childhood education and care systems.
