Documents

Au cours de sa séance plénière du 24 novembre 2020, le Conseil a émis l’avis n° 2.185 dans le cadre de la consultation européenne sur le plan d’action européen mettant en œuvre le socle européen des droits sociaux. Dans cet avis, le Conseil a rappelé le rôle central de la concertation au niveau belge au travers d’instances représentatives sur le plan interprofessionnel, ainsi que la place privilégiée des accords conclus sur les thèmes et principes clés mis en exergue dans ce socle. Il a également mis en lumière les instruments interprofessionnels et les autres travaux menés au sein du Conseil qui présentent des liens étroits avec le socle européen des droits sociaux. Parmi les activités du Conseil pointées, peuvent notamment être citées celles portant sur la diversité, la digitalisation, la prévention primaire du burnout, une organisation du travail innovante, le retour volontaire au travail, la liaison au bien-être des allocations de sécurité sociale et d’assistance sociale ou encore les transpositions respectives de la directive conciliation vie privée vie professionnelle et de la directive conditions de travail transparentes. L’agenda social et économique des prochains mois étant largement tributaire de l’évolution de la situation sanitaire, le Conseil suivra avec attention la discussion sur le futur plan d’action européen destiné à mettre en œuvre le socle européen des droits sociaux ainsi que le paquet de l’Union Européenne en matière de relance et de résilience pour surmonter la crise COVID-19. Ilse réserve également la possibilité de formuler ultérieurement des initiatives à adopter en vue de mettre en œuvre concrètement le socle européen des droits sociaux au niveau national. Les prochaines négociations interprofessionnelles qui vont baliser les enjeux à rencontrer pour 2021 et 2022 constitueront à coup sûr une source d’inspiration potentielle pour de telles initiatives.

The Irish social welfare system is not in crisis, but faces profound challenges that arise in the wider social, economic and demographic contexts. These challenges have been compounded by the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the economy and society. This report asks: Is the Irish social welfare system fit for the 21st century? and makes suggestions as to how the system might be modernised to reflect current contexts.

Multi-sectoral approaches to Innovative Skills Training for Renewable energy And social acceptance (MISTRAL): Mistral is an innovative training and support network for 15 doctoral researchers in relation to renewable energy and social acceptance operating in 6 countries: United Kingdom, Portugal, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, and Ireland. It is a three year project funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under a Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant The network and overall project is led by Council Member, Prof Geraint Ellis, Queens University Belfast. NESC is a partner in the MISTRAL programme. It is funded by the European Commission under the Innovative Training Network. NESC will provide a secondment opportunity for two doctoral researchers with posts in QUB. Alex Miller was seconded to NESC as a visiting researcher from June to September 2020. His project explored current energy policy and practice for two countries within the uncertainty of Covid-19. This is the resulting research paper titled ‘Energy transition pathways and the COVID-19 pandemic: An analysis of the ‘green recovery’ responses in Denmark and Ireland’.

Prior to the Covid-19 crisis Ireland faced significant challenges in the housing sector including insufficient housing output, acute affordability pressures in the private rental sector and high unmet need for social housing. It is over two years since the Council set out its analysis of Ireland’s system of urban development, land management and housing provision. That research concluded that the system was dysfunctional and that a suite of actions were required to fix it. The Council’s consistent and long-standing position on housing and land-use policy is that Ireland must bring about a fundamental change in its system of urban development, land management and housing provision. Ireland must evolve from a speculative and highly cyclical system to a permanently affordable, stable and more sustainable system of housing. Pursuing that objective, NESC’s current research is concerned with two-related issues. First, bridging the supply gap by actively managing land and locational value for public good; and second, bridging the affordability gap by engineering-in permanent affordability. Separately, the Council has recommended the adoption of a more sustainable form of urban development (transport-orientated development) on foot of a significant, recent research study.