Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Written Statements

[The Minister for Employment (Damian Hinds)]

The Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council will take place on 7 December 2017 in Brussels. As Minister of State for Employment, I will represent the UK.

The Council will be invited to agree a partial general approach on the revision of regulations on co-ordination of social security systems—Long-Term Care and Family Benefits (883/04 and 987/09).

The Council will be invited to agree a general approach on the European Accessibility Act.

The Council will receive a progress report on the draft directive on equal treatment (Art. 19) and the draft directive on work-life balance.

The Council will be invited to give political agreement to the directive on Maritime Labour Convention (implementing a Social Partner agreement).

As part of the semester process the European Commission will present the annual growth survey 2018, the draft joint employment report, the alert mechanism report and the draft recommendation on the economic policy of the euro area. They will also seek the views and approval of member states on the employment and social aspects of the recommendation on the euro area.

The Council will be invited to adopt Council conclusions on the following three topics: the future of work: making it e-easy; enhancing community-based support and care for independent living; and on enhanced measures to reduce horizontal gender segregation in education and employment.

Under any other business, the Commission will present information on the EU action plan 2017-2019 on tackling the gender pay gap and on concluding the year of focused actions to eliminate gender-based violence. The Swedish delegation and the Commission will present information on the Social summit (Gothenburg, 17 November 2017) and the Bulgarian delegation will present the work programme of its incoming presidency.

[HCWS310]