The Pillar is proclaimed and has a non-binding nature. Delivering on the principles of the Pillar is primarily a responsibility of national governments, of public authorities and of Social Partners at all levels. With its trade union counterpart industriAll Europe, Ceemet underlines 9 principles to contribute to the debate.

1. The integration of the Pillar objectives into the European Semester of Policy Coordination must always be done taking into account the diverse needs of national labour markets and fully respecting social partners autonomy and the role of social dialogue.
2. Striving for more ambitious social standards presupposes increased efforts in both private and public investment.
3. Training, retraining and lifelong-learning are key to facilitate people’s integration into the labour market.
4. Faced with the challenge of the transformation of the world of work, social protection must be adapted to ensure adequate protection for all workers. Furthermore, existing legislations must be better enforced.
5. Ceemet and industriAll Europe fully support the objective of increasing the participation of women in the labour market, as well as ensuring equality between men and women with regards to labour market opportunities and equal treatment at work.
6. Access to and the quality of childcare and elderly care facilities should also be improved, since the shortage of these facilities, amongst others, hinders, the participation of women into the labour market.
7. A well-functioning social dialogue at all levels is essential to address working life and to find common and balanced solutions to up-coming challenges such as the increased digitalisation, the transformation of the world of work or the ageing of the population.
8. Collective bargaining between strong, representative, mandated and autonomous social partners is a tool to improve wages and working conditions and to contribute to productivity increase in Europe as well as to help to speed up European recovery and stabilise the economy.
9. IndustriAll Europe and Ceemet are committed to support the strengthening of collective bargaining systems in Europe and reject any political interference.