The president of the Economic and Social Council (CES), Francisco Assis, called this Wednesday to look at the CES in the constitutional context, taking advantage of the review process started in parliament.
Francisco Assis took this position at the presentation of the book “30 years of the Economic and Social Council – Strength and fragility of civil society”, which took place this Wednesday at the Centro Cultural de Belém, in Lisbon, during a session attended by the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
“Once a process of constitutional revision has started, I don’t think it’s a problem to look at the ESC issue in the constitutional context either”said the president of the CES, leaving the “call” that the Economic and Social Council should be looked at in this context of the constitutional review and a “perspective of change” of its role.
Francisco Assis pointed out that the only obligation of the CES arising from the Constitution is to issue an advisory on the Big Options, which he said made sense 30 years ago, but no longer today.
During his speech, the President of CES also reiterated that CES should have a technical dimension to guide and monitor what is being done in the field of social dialogue, pointing as an example to the recent medium-term agreement that has been signed by the social partners and the government, as it would be relevant to monitor it.
For her part, the Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, Ana Mendes Godinho, noted that “these are times of evaluation”, “lessons learned from the outset” regarding social dialogue as a decisive collective response tool in moments of crisis”.
In an analysis of these 30 years of CES, he emphasized the fact that this body was created when “demanding times” were being lived, with high unemployment and inflation, a fall in GDP and major labor disputes, but he emphasized the “challenging” times in over the past three years, with a pandemic, a war and a context of high inflation.
“It is in this context that social dialogue becomes even more indispensable. We are all called upon to rethink and reinvent ways and answers”said the minister.
The work “30 years of the Economic and Social Council”, signed by journalist Pedro Tadeu and edited by Almedina, brings together testimonials from government officials, trade unionists, leaders of confederations and former presidents of the institution, in addition to offering chronologies, details of the functioning and the agreements made in the Social Concert.
In turn, during the presentation of the book, Pedro Tadeu emphasized that the opinion he formed during the research process for the book is that “Today’s social dialogue, on the labor side, is too fragile”, which he attributes to three factors: the “tactics” followed by governments of bilaterally negotiating agreements with employers’ federations and UGT, with the exception of the “more demanding” CGTP; to the greater union between the employers’ federations than between the central unions and to the fact that the majority of the representatives of the Permanent Council “defend what is more in line with the dominant economic currents in Brussels”.
Source: DN
