On 26 April 2023 the European Commission presented a proposal for a new economic governance framework. The objective is to strengthen debt sustainability and promote sustainable and inclusive growth.

The Spanish Presidency and the Belgian Presidency of the EU have launched an Informal Working Group on Social Investment (IWGSI). 

The main objective of the IWG is – without interfering with the ongoing negotiations on the Economic Governance Review (EGR) – to provide input based on empirical evidence regarding micro and macroeconomic returns of social investments and reforms as well as monitoring and evaluation methodologies for tracking social investment returns, to support a political debate. 

The purpose of this note is to back the reflection of the IWGSI in these two directions. The note has been completed on the 11th March 2024, following the 9 meetings of the Informal Working Group on Social Investment.

Across the globe, around 1.3 billion of people experience significant disability. This figure has grown over the last decade and projections suggest that it will continue to rise due to several factors, including population growth.

Studies and data have shown how individuals with disabilities are more likely to face persistent disadvantage in all aspects of society, but notable when it comes to labour market participation or social protection.

Unfortunately, despite policymakers awareness, the situation did not significantly improve since the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD) has regularly raised concerns about the high unemployment rates of people with disabilities in the European Union but also countries which have ratified the CRPD. However, rights of people with disabilities to work and fully participate in society is enshrined in the UN CRPD, which has been ratified by all EU Member States as well as non-EU countries.

The FPS Social Security, in collaboration with SOCIEUX+, publishes a metapaper (overview and synthesis) "The climate change challenge: how can social protection and labour and employment policies support adaptation and mitigation?" written by Dr Koen Vleminckx.

In this metapaper, we discuss the potential of labour market policies and social protection systems to protect and prepare people for social and economic shocks due to climate change and to facilitate the green transition. We do this through concrete examples of interesting practices in different countries in different regions of the world. The aim is to inspire policymakers and stakeholders in EU partner countries with concrete practices from other countries.

Everyone has already heard of social security. The purpose of this brochure is to clarify the
Belgian social security system and to give some information on the international aspects of
social security Belgium is involved with.

Monitoring the social situation in Belgium and the progress towards the social objectives and the priorities of the National Reform Programme.

After the Brexit, the situation of Belgians in the United Kingdom has changed somewhat, also in terms of social security. In order to provide an initial response to certain questions raised by this situation, the Belgian Social Security Federal Public Service has drawn up an information sheet.

This brochure briefly presents the European system of statistics and gives an overview of financial flows in the field of social protection in Belgium.

As usual, the ESSPROS brochure presents the figures on social protection in Belgium and Europe. The FPS Social Security collects these figures from its various partners.

BELINCOSOC unites all the actors of the Belgian social security and is the structure that promotes international cooperation in that field (at European as well as at global level). 

BELINCOSOC is essentially an efficient tool for organising large-scale international projects and for helping countries that wish to organise, develop or improve their social protection system.

As single point of contact, BELINCOSOC also maintains, on behalf of its members, the relations with the international organisations active in the field of social protection and welfare.

Finally, BELINCOSOC wishes to encourage knowledge and experience sharing and thus aims to step forward as a study centre that is recognised by the aforementioned international organisations.

The debate on ‘flexicurity’ is currently high on the European employment and social
policy agenda. The concept originally referred to the Danish employment strategy of the
nineties, marked by relatively high levels of labour market flexibility combined with
relatively high (short-term) unemployment benefits and a broad array of activation and
temporary leave programmes. However, the concept has since been applied to varying
narratives built around the nexus of labour market flexibility, employment security and
social protection.