CoE committee chief: Need to boost social rights as ‘battered’ Europeans look right

Europeans are still feeling the pinch from successive crises, which shapes their democratic engagement and risks more shifts towards authoritarian governance if the importance of social rights is not amplified, the president of the Council of Europe’s Social Rights Committee told Euractiv in an interview.

Aoife Nolan, also a professor of human rights law and co-director of the Human Rights Law Centre at the University of Nottingham, is set to chair a high-level Social Rights Charter conference in Vilnius on 4 July, where she hopes to increase momentum around the charter, particularly at this crucial time.

The Council of Europe is an international human rights organisation with 46 members. The European Social Charter is a CoE treaty created in 1961, laying down social rights to complement the European Charter of Human Rights (ECHR), which supports political and civil rights.

It guarantees rights relating to housing, health, education, labour and employment, parental leave, social security, protection from exclusion, migrants and disabled people, and the free movement of persons—many areas that jar with right—and far-right agendas.

Questioned on the outcome of the recent EU elections and the shift to the right in many member states and the European Parliament, Nolan said much can be attributed to the fallout of recent crises, including the cost of living and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“If you look at data from Eurostat and polling data, and you look at voting patterns, it’s very clear that people are feeling hugely under pressure in terms of their standard of living, and they fear for the future and their children’s future, and that is shaping how they’re engaging with democracy,” Nolan told Euractiv.

“We have a polycrisis – the effects of which are reverberating across Europe and are having a huge impact on people’s living standards,” she said, adding that “if we don’t get social rights right, we’re going to see more shifts, I fear, towards undemocratic, authoritarian governance that undermines all human rights”.

Pressed further on why the right wing is rising and what it could mean for the charter, she said that while many right-wing parties express concerns about day-to-day living conditions, housing, and education and seek to address people’s concerns, they are not necessarily honest brokers.

“If you look at the ethos of these parties, particularly far-right parties, these are not parties that are concerned with ensuring equality and non-discrimination, which are fundamental basic elements of Social Charter and, indeed, all human rights.”

Nolan was clear that far-right parties use people’s fears for their own gain, but their actual stance on minorities, race, equality, and the nondiscriminatory enjoyment of social rights “bodes very poorly as we move forward if those parties come into power”.

Could the right weaponise the charter?

Asked if the charter could be weaponised by the right, much like with the Istanbul Convention on combatting violence against women in Hungary and Poland and the European Charter on Human Rights (ECHR) in the UK, Nolan said:

“I think there’s always a concern, whether it’s the charter or any other standard, that it will be weaponised or deliberately misconstrued by those who have their own agendas, which are served by misconstruing that standard.”

While the charter lays down protections for matters that “relate directly to human survival, development, well-being and flourishing”, as Nolan describes, it is not as well known as some of its other counterparts. This is a challenge Nolan hopes will change as social rights come increasingly under the spotlight.

“The charter is extremely important because it takes these rights and puts them into a legal instrument, an international treaty, that enforces these rights that are incredibly important,” Nolan said.

“We cannot pretend things are going well for people in Europe and that it can be solved solely through using civil and political rights, and so attention is rightly being focused on social rights,” she said, adding this is a time when people feel increasingly “battered.”

Lack of attention and adoption

The charter was created in 1961, followed by a revision in 1996. Croatia, Denmark, Iceland, Luxembourg, Poland, and the UK have yet to adopt the revised charter, while 30 have yet to sign the collective complaints procedure, allowing national NGOs to file complaints against a signatory state.

“There are some states that are very strongly ideologically uncomfortable with the notion of social rights,” Nolan said.

However, other reasons, including a summer full of elections and government changes, have caused delays in taking further steps, even in states that favour the charter.

Nolan said there is a lack of familiarity and nervousness around social rights, “which isn’t ideological, it’s just a certain understandable anxiety about the unknown. People are very slow to move forward with things they’re not confident about.”

As for the European Union’s accession to the charter and the ECHR, a push for the latter happened some years ago but was stalled at the last hurdle by the European Court of Justice. However, hopes are high that it will be back on the agenda during the coming Commission mandate, followed by accession to the Social Rights Charter.

Another member state set to adopt revised charter

At this week’s conference, Nolan said she expects another country – without revealing which – to adopt the revised charter, demonstrating “strong evidence of the growing commitment to social rights on the part of European governments”.

As for other concrete outcomes of the conference, Nolan said it is key to “keep up the momentum with states on accepting more provisions and moving to the revised charter, as well as accepting collective complaints  mechanism.”

“We want to use the conference to build relationships, have dialogues, and provide insights, guidance, and support in their efforts to push forward on social rights.”

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]

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