On 28 May 2020, Associate Professor of EU Labour Law, Luca Ratti, held a video-conference with EU Commissioner Nicolas Schmit and his Cabinet to discuss ongoing issues surrounding in-work poverty.
The meeting, realised within the framework of the Horizon2020 project led by Prof. Ratti WorkYP (Working, Yet Poor), focused on in-work poverty and European social citizenship.
Indeed, the EU Commission is now launching the second phase of consultation with social partners on an EU minimum wage instrument, and exploring further steps to increase social fairness and reduce in-work poverty.
Prof. Ratti presented the WorkYP Project and its consortium, and focused the attention on two main items. Firstly, the need to take into account the household dimension of in-work poverty; secondly, the risk of an unbalanced post-Covid-19 recovery across the EU, which requires EU-scale action to mitigate.
As for the details of such action, Prof. Ratti underlined the importance of minimum wage and income protection policies, particularly focused on children, as well as the elaboration of measures targeted to the most vulnerable clusters of the labour market. The European Pillar of Social Rights, read in the light of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, may serve as a sufficiently ample basis to enhance discussion at EU-level and promote further instruments during the next rotating presidency of the EU, which will be led by Germany from July 2020.
Prof. Ratti concluded with the commitment to make the WorkYP project’s results available as soon as they are ready in order to adequately inform EU and domestic policymakers on possible measures to reduce in-work poverty.
Read Prof. Ratti’s most recent blog article published in Social Europe, “In-work poverty in times of pandemic”, here.