EUROPEAN SOCIAL CHARTER COMPARISONS (Hansard, 27 June 1990)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Employment (Lord Strathclyde)

There are a number of important differences between the two social charters. These are differences in content, the nature of the instrument and whether or not member states have flexibility to adopt selected parts of them.

The Council of Europe's European social charter addresses economic and social rights for all sections of society. Once ratified by a member state it becomes a binding international treaty. In order to ratify the charter a member state must undertake to accept 10 or more of the 19 articles contained in it. Five of these must be taken from a list of seven specified articles, otherwise states are free to decide which parts of the charter they will accept.

There is scope for a contracting state subsequently to denounce articles which it no longer wishes to ratify, subject to continuing acceptance of the minimum of 10.

The European Community social charter, on the other hand, is essentially concerned with the rights of workers. It is a political statement of intent agreed by 11 of the EC member states; it is not a legally binding document. It has to be accepted as a whole or not at all. It includes an invitation to the European Commission to propose an action programme of measures to implement the rights contained in it.

The Commission action programme, published in November 1989, contains nearly 50 separate measures, around half of which are for measures which would be legally binding on member states. Once a measure has been adopted a member state cannot subsequently denounce it; and changes can only be made to an agreed Community instrument where there is general agreement that that is necessary.