In view of the formidable challenges ahead related to recovery from the Covid-19 crisis and to the green and digital transitions, the ETUI asked the OSE, following a competitive tender, to reflect on how the EU social governance toolbox could be further strengthened. The first aim of the project is to assess and critically evaluate existing social benchmarking or ‘scoreboards’ (or proposals for possible ‘scoreboards’) aimed at identifying or correcting social imbalances within the EU, including by means of a literature review. Second, the OSE will explore the possibility of setting up an EU instrument to identify and correct social imbalances in the Member States, thus helping to address the structural asymmetry between the economic and the social dimension of the European integration process. Thirdly, the OSE will delineate the main features and the functioning of such an instrument. Finally, the OSE team will discuss both the added value and possible limitations and shortcomings of a possible Social Imbalances Procedure (from both a technical and political point of view). The preliminary results will be presented to an experts’ workshop, where the findings will be discussed and tested before being finalised. The project will culminate, during 2022, in a report and an executive summary.
OSE Researchers involved: Sebastiano Sabato and Bart Vanhercke.