April 24, 2026
By Lize R. Glas
On 18 and 19 March 2026, representatives from the Council of Europe (CoE) member states and many others gathered in Chişinău, Moldova, for a high-level conference on the European Social Charter (ESC), in the year of the 65th anniversary of the original ESC and the 30th anniversary of the revised ESC. The conference culminated in the adoption of a political declaration, the Chişinău Declaration (Declaration). In this blog, I will analyse the content of the Declaration. First, however, I will outline the context in which it was adopted.
One of the developments preceding the conference in Chişinău is the Turin Process (2014-2022), which led to reform of the ESC system and which I outlined in a previous blog. In the 2023 Reykjavík Declaration, the CoE member states reaffirmed their “full commitment to the protection and implementation of social rights as guaranteed” by the ESC system. They also promised to consider organising a conference on the ESC. This conference took place in 2024, resulting in the Vilnius Declaration. As I concluded in my previous blog, the Vilnius Declaration did not lead to any significant reforms, and much work remains to be done. Nevertheless, I agreed with the President of the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) that “the tide is turning” for the ESC system, as the fact that a conference on the ESC took place showed that the states were willing to devote time and attention to it. Furthermore, this exercise was repeated in 2026 in Chişinău, meaning that the ESC continues to be in the limelight.
Considering the pressure on social rights, attention to the ESC is much needed. As the CoE Secretary General Berset noted in his latest annual report:
Europe continues to grapple with overlapping crises affecting social justice, public health and the environment. The lingering effects of the cost-of-living crisis, accelerated climate change and rising social inequalities have placed additional pressure on governments, institutions and communities. While some economic indicators show signs of stabilisation, vulnerable populations continue to face significant hardships, and structural disparities remain a persistent concern. [The]the impact of inflation and economic stagnation continues to affect low-income households, highlighting the need for sustained and co-ordinated policy action.
These concerns are reflected in the first paragraph of the Chişinău Declaration, which also highlights the “need to increase defence spending resulting from the unstable international situation, including Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”. This further exacerbates the pressure on social rights. The Iran War and the resulting impending energy crisis add to this pressure.
In a comparable manner as in the declarations adopted in Reykjavík and Vilnius, the member states “reaffirm their full commitment to the protection and implementation of social rights” as guaranteed by the ESC. Such a reaffirmation is both a more or less obligatory element of a declaration and of significant symbolic importance, but remains an empty shell if it is not accompanied by other commitments. These other commitments are discussed below.
The reaffirmation was not preceded by a reference to the well-known phrase from the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action that all “human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated”. The Vilnius Declaration did include this reference. The omission reveals that the indivisibility of human rights remains controversial among the CoE states. This is also apparent from an evaluation report commissioned by the CoE on the ESC, which found that relevant stakeholders regard social rights as carrying less “political weight” than the ECHR and, consequently, as “‘secondary human rights’, a perspective that continues to influence their implementation and prioritisation” within the CoE and beyond.
To ensure that the reaffirmation is not just an empty gesture, the states could, as the CoE Commissioner for Human Rights also noted in Chişinău, (1) ratify the revised ESC, (2) accept more ESC provisions as binding, (3) allow for collective complaints, (4) recognise the right of national NGOs to file collective complaints and (5) extend the territorial scope of the ESC. The Declaration encourages member states to ‘consider’ the first option and to keep the second and third under review. The last two options are not mentioned.
Apart from the encouragement in the text of the Declaration, quite some good news was shared at the conference. Malta and Norway accepted additional obligations under six and two provisions respectively, four states submitted letters of intent to accept additional provisions, and Croatia intends to ratify the revised ESC. Nevertheless, the number of ratifications does not reflect what the ECSR wished prior to the conference, namely ratification of the revised ESC by all CoE member states. Currently, the number of ratifications stands at 36, with Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and Switzerland having ratified neither ESC.
France adopted a declaration under Article L(2) revised ESC (Article 34(2) 1961 ESC) to extend the territorial scope of the Charter to its non-metropolitan territories, expanding the ESC’s scope to cover an additional two million people. Unless such a declaration is made, the ESC applies only to the metropolitan territory of states parties (Article L(1) revised ESC). According to the CoE Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), Article L is “incompatible with the norms provided for by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties” (VCLT). However, the ECSR explained that Article L “constitutes the manifestation of” a “different intention”, which is actually foreseen in Article 29 VCLT (“unless a different intention appears from the treaty […], a treaty binds each of the parties to the whole of its territory”).
The states could also increase the effect of the reaffirmation by redoubling their efforts to implement the ESC. This is particularly important because the impact of the ESC on national policies and legislation “varies significantly”. In the Declaration, the member states make several commitments that could improve implementation, including regarding transformations in labour markets and women’s access to social rights. Additionally, the states commit to following up on the conclusions and decisions of the ECSR, while “taking into account national circumstances and realities”. Prior to the conference, the ECSR emphasised the importance of promoting “peer-learning by drawing on good practises in certain States Parties”, which could be achieved by establishing “a national mechanism of coordination”. The ECSR also proposed “aligning the follow-up to the ECSR’s conclusions and decisions by the Committee of Ministers […] more closely with the procedure of execution of judgments of the ECtHR”. However, these more specific proposals did not make it into the Declaration.
In the Declaration, a reference is made to the so-called New Democratic Pact for Europe. Since Secretary General Berset proposed the pact in his 2025 annual report, the pact has become a buzzword within the CoE. Described as a ‘reset’ or ‘vision’, the pact is intended to transform the Reykjavík Principles for Democracy into action. However, it remains difficult to pinpoint exactly what the pact is, since its scope is very broad and its aim is highly ambitious and described in different, albeit connected ways. For example, the pact is intended not only to confront democratic backsliding, but also to address climate change. Furthermore, although the pact “aims at redefining democracy”, it does not seek to ‘reinvent’ it. The “ultimate outcome is a Europe of 46 countries where democracy works better, reaches further and includes everyone”, whereas the “overall objective” is “to restore citizens’ trust in democracy and show that democracy is the best system to ensure peace, equality and prosperity in Europe”.
It comes as no surprise that the Declaration refers to the pact. In fact, the Declaration is used to welcome the initiative. The link between social rights and democracy is clear according to the Declaration, and was previously made in the Reykjavík Declaration: “Difficulty to guarantee social rights and deliver social justice is a major driver of distrust in public authorities and democratic institutions”. Or, put more positively: “ensuring social rights […] is essential to countering growing threats to democracy driven in particular by fears about economic instability, declining working and living standards and limited opportunities”. This link means that investing in social rights is not only “a moral imperative”, but also “a strategic choice”, as is explained in the Declaration.
Apart from democracy, another recurring theme is the connection between, on the one hand, the ESC and the ECSR and, on the other hand, other bodies and treaties. The Declaration recognises “the importance of strengthening visibility, understanding, awareness and ownership of the Charter, in particular at local level”. This requires particular attention, given that the ESC must be implemented at this level and given the ESC’s limited visibility to date (according to the aforementioned evaluation).
Another important connection is that with international organisations. The Declaration recognises “the importance of institutional dialogue and synergies between the [CoE], the United Nations, the ILO and the EU in order to ensure coherence and complementarity”. In the same vein, the member states underline their commitment “to recognised principles on social rights and social justice enacted by other international or regional organisations”. The evaluation demonstrated that there is room for improvement in this respect, because “overlaps between the Charter and other instruments create inefficiencies and reduce the overall added value of the reporting system”.
There is a need for more synergies within the CoE, too. The Declaration emphasises the need for better co-operation “to promote coordinated action on social rights”, including between the ESC bodies, the PACE and the Conference of INGOs. Within the ESC framework, there should be enhanced dialogue between the ECSR, the Governmental Committee (GC),[i] different domestic authorities and other stakeholders. This echoes a recommendation from the evaluation that such dialogue should be intensified “with particular emphasis on improving interaction between the ECSR and the GC to enhance contextual understanding and avoid non-conformity decisions based on incomplete information or lack of context”. As the evaluation explains, state authorities often perceive ECSR recommendations “as failing to account for national contexts, leading to a lack of understanding and acceptance at the domestic level”. This context includes resource constraints and competing priorities like national security. Failure take national contexts into account “has resulted in frustration among states, which often see the recommendations as overly critical and detached from practical realities”. Implementing such enhanced dialogue in practice is not easy. As explained in the management response to the evaluation, the human and financial resources of the ESC organs are limited. Furthermore, the “ECSR is an independent quasi-judicial monitoring body” whose “role is not to provide technical capacity-building” for others.
Prior to the conference, the ECSR made two concrete requests: more budget and ECSR members. It deemed a budget increase necessary, because the scope and intensity of its work had grown “due to its steadily growing monitoring role and workload over the last two decades, and because of the additional responsibilities” as a result of reforms. Apparently, the budget increase in the CoE programme and budget for 2024-2027 was insufficient. Already during the Turin Process, various other stakeholders emphasised the need for additional funding and the more recent evaluation identified resource constraints as an one of the ECSR’s “efficiency challenges”. While the Declaration recognises the role of the ECSR, the states do not put their money where their mouth is, as the Declaration does not mention the ECSR’s budget at all.
According to the ECSR, the member states should consider increasing the number of its members, of which there are currently 15, “in order to maintain an appropriate balance reflecting Europe’s diverse legal traditions and social models, and to respond effectively to the expanding responsibilities”. This is another reform measure that had previously been proposed and that is ignored in the Declaration. The two requests seem to be connected, for additional members would require a budget increase. However, as ECSR members receive only travel expenses and a fixed allowance per sitting day, rather than a salary, the cost of additional members will probably not weigh too heavily on the budget.
The high-level conference in Chişinău did not lead to many additional commitments in the form of ratifications and declarations, nor to extra funding or committee members, as the ECSR had asked for prior to the conference. In particular, the dialogue that the ECSR is supposed to engage in with other international organisations, a lengthy list of CoE bodies, domestic authorities and within the ESC system itself probably cannot take place without additional resources, including for additional committee members. Nevertheless, the reaffirmation by the states of their full commitment to the protection and implementation of social rights is of considerable importance, particularly given that the indivisibility of human rights remains a contentious issue among the CoE member states. Furthermore, the clear link that the Declaration establishes between both social rights and various pressing contemporary challenges, as well as between social rights and democracy, coupled with the New Democratic Pact for Europe, confirms the ESC’s undeniable relevance to the CoE and its member states. This relevance is evident in the Chişinău Declaration – the second declaration on the ESC in only two years – and the ESC will remain in the limelight, as Portugal has promised to host the third high-level conference during its presidency of the Committee of Ministers in 2029.
[i] In full: the Governmental Committee of the ESC and the European Code of Social Security, composed of one representative per ESC state party and prepares the work concerning the ESC of the Committee of Ministers, which is responsible for following up to the findings of the ECSR.
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1 Comment
Excellent analysis!