The European Commission has proposed the launch of a social scoreboard to complement the economic indicators that it now monitors as part of the European semester – the process of reviewing national budgets. The proposal, adopted by the college of commissioners yesterday (2 October), sets out social indicators, but shies away from setting out any binding action that would be triggered when those indicators pass thresholds.

László Andor, the European commissioner for employment, social affairs and inclusion, had sought binding consequences, but was defeated by other commissioners, who feared opposition from the member states.

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Not binding

“There is no automatic consequence of any of these indicators on the member states, there is no automatic trigger,” Andor said at the publication of the proposal yesterday. Hannes Swoboda, the leader of the Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament, said: “Social indicators are useless if they are not binding. We need a social governance policy at the same level as economic governance policies in the EU.”

The Commission’s paper is intended to feed into a discussion of the social dimension of economic and monetary union by member states’ leaders at their summit on 24-25 October. The sherpas preparing for that summit are meeting today.

However, as the formation of a new coalition government in Germany is taking longer than previously hoped, few firm decisions are expected from the summit.

The scoreboard would become part of the Union’s employment report, published each autumn, and feature five main indicators, on unemployment, youth unemployment, household disposable income, the at-risk-of-poverty rate, and inequality. The Commission is planning to apply the indicators during the 2014 European semester.