The work of the European Committee of social rights (ECSR) remains essential to the protection of Europeans rights at a time of persistent socio-economic challenges across Europe, including the cost-of-living crisis, labour-market transformation, and pressure on welfare systems. Its newly published 2025 activity report highlights the breadth and extent of its work in monitoring the implementation of the European Social Charter.
A key feature of the committee's work in 2025 was its examination reports of states that have signed the agreement under the revised reporting system. The ECSR adopted 213 conclusions - 186 of non-conformity and 27 of conformity. While noting positive developments in several countries, the ECSR also identified continued shortcomings in areas such as fair remuneration, working time, collective bargaining, gender pay equality, and protection for workers in non-standard forms of employment.
Collective complaints crucial to ensuring social rights
The collective complaints procedure, which allows the ECSR to monitor compliance with the charter through complaints lodged by social partners and non-governmental organisations, continued to play an important role in ensuring accountability in the countries that have accepted its provisions and the complaints mechanism. In 2025, 13 new complaints were lodged, and the committee adopted ten decisions on the merits and eight decisions on admissibility, covering issues including labour rights, housing, social protection, healthcare and the rights of vulnerable groups.
While continuing its dialogue with states that have not yet accepted all provisions of the European Social Charter or the collective complaints procedure, the ECSR's procedure on non-accepted provisions - which requires countries that have ratified the revised European Social Charter to submit reports at regular intervals on the provisions they have not accepted - remained an important part of the committee's work in 2025. The ECSR adopted ten reports under this procedure and welcomed the improved timeliness of states' submissions, supporting efforts to progressively strengthen the protection of social rights across Europe.
Cooperation across the Council of Europe and beyond
The report underlines the ECSR's close cooperation with other Council of Europe bodies, including the Committee of Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly, the Commissioner for Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights registry. These interactions strengthen the coherence of the Council of Europe human rights system and support more effective implementation of the European Social Charter across member states.
The ECSR also continued to develop its cooperation with international organisations and partners, including the European Union, the United Nations, the International Labour Organisation, and representative employers' and workers' organisations. These partnerships help reinforce the Charter's visibility and ensure greater alignment between European and international standards on social rights.
"Looking ahead, the ECSR remains committed to strengthening the visibility, accessibility, and impact of the charter system. Ongoing efforts to step up communication, education, and capacity-building will be essential to ensure that the charter and the ECSR's jurisprudence is better understood and more widely applied by national authorities, courts, social partners and civil-society actors," underlined ECSR President Aoife Nolan in the introduction to the activity report 2025.
