Social Protection Committee

The Social Protection Committee (SPC) is an advisory policy committee to the Ministers in the Employment and Social Affairs Council (EPSCO). The SPC is established with a Council decision under article 160 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU.

The SPC uses as its main policy framework the social Open Method of Coordination (OMC), which aims to meet EU goals in the social policy area. It encompasses all major social policy strands:

social protection and social inclusion,
pensions,
healthcare and long-term care.

The SPC's tasks include:

monitoring the social situation and the development of social protection policies in the Member States and in the EU,
promoting discussion and coordination of policy approaches among national governments and the Commission,
preparing reports, formulating opinions or undertaking other work within its fields of competence, at the request of either the Council, the Commission or on its own initiative,
preparing Council discussions on social protection and on the country-specific recommendations in the context of the European Semester.

Organisation and working methods

The SPC is composed of two delegates from each Member State and the Commission.

The SPC meets every month except in July and August. Two times per year, the meetings take place in the country holding the Presidency of the Council of the EU.

The SPC elects a chairperson who holds office for a two-year period (renewable once). The current chair is Rute Guerra (PT).

The chairperson is assisted by a bureau, which consists of the Commission, 4 vice-chairs (2 elected vice-chairs, 1 representative from the current and 1 representative from the next Council Presidency country), the SPC secretary, the General Secretariat of the Council, and the chairperson of the Indicators subgroup. The current elected vice-chairs are Jere Päivinen (FI) and Rita Skrebiškienė (LT).

The SPC Secretariat is provided by the Commission through a team of officials including Katalin Szatmari, Paul Minty and Katarzyna Grętkiewicz. The current secretary is Katalin Szatmari.

SPC subgroups

The SPC has one permanent subgroup - the Indicators' subgroup (ISG), which is responsible for developing and defining EU social indicators to monitor Member States' progress towards the objectives underpinning the social OMC. In addition, the SPC may establish ad hoc working groups for in-depth policy work/reports.

Work programme

The SPC’s work and deliverables are defined in its work programme:

2024

Main outputs

Deliverables under the European Semester:
- Analysis of the social protection and social inclusion aspects of the Annual Growth Survey
- Multilateral reviews on the implementation of the country-specific recommendations (CSRs) in the area of social protection and social inclusion and examination of the relevant aspects of the National Reform Programmes
- Preparation for Council adoption of the CSRs related to social protection and social inclusion
- Horizontal assessments of the annual package of CSRs
- Evaluation of the annual European Semester cycle
Opinion on the proposal by Belgium and Spain for the introduction of a Social Imbalances Procedure in the European Semester
Opinion on the 2030 National Target Setting Process
European Pillar of Social Rights
Social dimension of the EMU
Mid-term-review of the Europe 2020 Strategy