HOSPEEM, together with SGI Europe and HEAG, will organise the Finance4EPSR project workshop on 17 January 2025 in Brussels where the participants will discuss different aspects of sustainable finance. Online participation is possible.
The main meeting objectives are to deepen the knowledge about the practical impact of a social taxonomy into the business life of enterprises delivering services of general interest and to develop a methodology for guiding non-financial reporting to foster SGIs contributions towards the implementation of the EPSR.
On 11 October 2024, the European Commission’s DG REGIO hosted partners of the Harnessing Talent Platform, a knowledge-building and experience-sharing initiative aimed at fostering dialogue among relevant stakeholders at the European, national, and regional levels. Since the establishment of four working groups in autumn 2023, focusing on Digital, Health, Research & Innovation, and Territorial issues, eleven issue papers have been published. These papers identify the scope of the challenges and propose actionable outputs.
This meeting brought together representatives from all working groups to discuss key issues, short- and long-term outcomes, and potential synergies within the platform and with other EU initiatives, such as the Pact for Skills, the European Cluster Collaboration Platform, and the Rural Revitalisation Platform.
In his opening remarks, François Gallaga (DG REGIO) emphasised that the competitiveness of the European economy depends on its ability to address current and future skills gaps. Following parallel meetings of the working groups, participants identified cross-cutting issues, reflected on external synergies, and discussed the next steps to deliver outputs in line with the work plan.
HOSPEEM is part of the Health Working Group, which focuses on the subtopic of improving service models and working conditions.
On 10 October 2024, Olena Horlach represented HOSPEEM at a panel discussion organized by the European Committee of the Regions’ Interregional Group on Health and Well-being, the European CoR’s Commission for Natural Resources (NAT), and EUREGHA – the reference network for European Regional and Local Health Authorities on the topic of “Strengthening Europe’s Healthcare Workforce: Attracting and retaining talent in a regional context” as part of the European Week of Regions.
Staff shortages, working conditions, and skills mismatches are having a significant impact on access to care and performance of healthcare system. Attracting and retaining talent across Europe’s regions is a key strategy to address this issue. This interactive session explored the difficulties and potential solutions for strengthening Europe’s healthcare workforce and increasing the sector’s attractiveness, in line with existing EU initiatives such as the Harnessing Talent Platform and the Pact for Skills.
HOSPEEM acknowledged that the main challenges include ageing population, work migration and working conditions amongst others. The EPSU-HOSPEEM Updated Framework of Action on Recruitment and Retention examines various remedies to these issues, while considering the 24/7 operational nature of the healthcare sector. Meanwhile, the EPSU-HOSPEEM Code of Conduct on Ethical Recruitment and Retention enables social partners in the hospital and healthcare sector address inequalities and promote ethical recruitment practices at European, national, regional and local level.
Better non-financial reporting on social aspects has the potential to increase investments flows towards economic activities with positive social outcomes as recognised in the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) Action Plan. In this regard, there is a huge untapped potential of the providers of services of general interest, as there is an unbalanced assessment of the impact of the non-financial disclosure requirements on the SGIs and public services providers, especially at the local level, compared to the big enterprises from the private sector.
Through the ‘Finance for the European Pillar of Social Rights’ project financed by the European Commission, SGI Europe and the project partners HOSPEEM and HEAG will aim to develop a methodology for guiding the non-financial reporting about social objectives to foster SGIs contributions towards the implementation of the EPSR, as well as to deepen the knowledge on the practical impact of a Social Taxonomy into the business life of enterprises delivering services of general interest. The project will create a capacity building framework which aims to unlock SGIs potential to further contribute to the EPSR’s objectives using sustainable finance tools. The guiding methodology will help SGI providers identify their activities in line with sustainable finance requirements and empower them in the interactions with investors aiming for social investments in key sectors such as healthcare, transport and energy.
‘Finance for the European Pillar of Social Rights’ Background
The European Union is in a complex social and economic recovery context following the COVID-19 pandemic, heavily amplified by the increase in energy prices and high inflation. Services of general interest represent the backbone of the European social market economy, are key players in the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights, as well as in the green and digital transition and, since the beginning of the pandemic, have demonstrated their central role in the resilience of the EU social-economic system.
Many SGIs are indeed providers of services of general interest to local entities and, while operating increasingly in competition under market rules, have to maintain a wider social responsibility towards the citizens they serve. However, in most cases, SGIs lack the necessary knowledge and experience to attract sustainable finance. This is mainly caused by an unbalanced assessment of the impact of the non-financial disclosure requirements on the SGIs and public services providers, especially at the local level, compared to the big enterprises from the private sector. This adds to a general lack of awareness and guidelines dedicated to SGI providers, including tailored non-financial reporting mechanisms, operational capacity and technical expertise to implement European sustainability benchmarks, and dedicated labels for SGI and public services providers. This scenario causes SGIs’ inability to attract private and socially sustainable investments and an overall lack of social investments in critical sectors such as healthcare, housing, transport or energy.
This is why SGI Europe and the project Partners, HOSPEEM and HEAG, aim to develop a methodology for guiding the non-financial reporting about social objectives as a critical goal to foster SGIs’ contributions towards implementing the European Pillar of Social Rights. In parallel, the project also aims to deepen the knowledge of the practical impact of a Social Taxonomy on the business life of enterprises delivering services of general interest. In this regard, the project focuses on a limited number of sectors essential for realising social rights, such as access to healthcare and housing, and improving the accessibility and availability of basic economic infrastructure and services such as clean electricity and water. Hospitals and the healthcare sector are critical infrastructure across the EU and have faced different challenges before the pandemic, stressing the need for regular and substantive investments. Consequently, testing the implementation of the Social Taxonomy is interesting for sectoral employers to understand and experiment with its implementation to ensure that (a) social taxonomy can be correctly applied to the benefit of all and (b) more potential investors can be identified.
The webinar explored the connections between digitalisation and third-party violence and harassment and aims to answer questions, including:
• Does digitalisation or how it is implemented increase or decrease the risks of TPV?
• How widespread is cyberviolence/harassment/bullying at work?
The project will examine and discuss the prevalence, causes and impact of third-party violence and harassment at work in the partners’ respective sectors and recent legislative and social partners’ responses to this major health and safety matter of common concern. It will aim to assess the application at the national level of 2010 Multi-sectoral Guidelines to tackle third-party violence and harassment related to work and whether further actions might be needed to make its implementation more effective.
The project will focus on the following sectors: hospitals, prison services, employment services, front line workers in local and regional government, secondary schools, urban public transport as well as telecoms.
Interpretation was be provided to and from English, French, Hungarian, Italian and Spanish.
The webinar aims to understand implementing preventative risk assessment culture regarding third-party violence and harassment at work and provides good practice examples from national social partners.
The project will examine and discuss the prevalence, causes and impact of third-party violence and harassment at work in the partners’ respective sectors and recent legislative and social partners’ responses to this major health and safety matter of common concern. It will aim to assess the application at the national level of 2010 Multi-sectoral Guidelines to tackle third-party violence and harassment related to work and whether further actions might be needed to make its implementation more effective.
The project will focus on the following sectors: hospitals, prison services, employment services, front line workers in local and regional government, secondary schools, urban public transport as well as telecoms.
Interpretation will be provided to and from English, French, Italian and Spanish.
The webinar aimed to better understand gender-based violence and its consequences on workers, to discuss prevention and management measures at the workplace while sharing initial views on the potential update of the Guidelines.
The project examined and discussed the prevalence, causes and impact of third-party violence and harassment at work in the partners’ respective sectors and recent legislative and social partners’ responses to this major health and safety matter of common concern.
The project focuses on the following sectors: hospitals, prison services, employment services, front line workers in local and regional government, secondary schools, urban public transport as well as telecoms.
Interpretation was provided to and from English, French, Italian and Spanish.
The webinar’s objective is to review definitions, legal frameworks, latest data available & kickoff discussion on the role of sectoral social dialogue.
The project examines and discusses the prevalence, causes and impact of third-party violence and harassment at work in the partners’ respective sectors as well as recent legislative and social partners’ responses to this major health and safety matter of common concern.
The project focus is on the following sectors: hospitals, prison services, employment services, front line workers in local and regional government, secondary schools, urban public transport as well as telecoms.
Interpretation was provided to and from English, French, Italian and Spanish.
The Dissemination Workshop of the HOSPEEM–EPSU joint project “Strengthening Social Dialogue in the Hospital Sector in the East, South and Central Europe”, took place on 16 June 2021 online. The workshop was organised by HOSPEEM. #EUSocDia
On 11 October 2024, the European Commission’s DG REGIO hosted partners of the Harnessing Talent Platform, a knowledge-building and experience-sharing initiative aimed at fostering dialogue among relevant stakeholders at the European, national, and regional levels. Since the establishment of four working groups in autumn 2023, focusing on Digital, Health, Research & Innovation, and Territorial issues, eleven issue papers have been published. These papers identify the scope of the challenges and propose actionable outputs.
The Dissemination Workshop of the 
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