One of the recommendations of the High-Level Group on Agro-Food is to establish a social dialogue in the food industry of EFFAT and the Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the EU (CIAA). The social partners are currently doing the groundwork for achieving this and we expect the dialogue to start at the beginning of next year.

One of the biggest challenges faced by the food sector is that companies in many branches of industry and countries are unable to find staff, because their sector is competing with others on the labour markets. In the light of this, the High-Level Group recommended ensuring that the sector be made more attractive for workers. Properly qualified workers and attractive jobs are prerequisites for quality. The crisis has once again shown how important a smoothly functioning social dialogue is. After all, some countries have coped better than others with the social risks faced by workers, namely those countries that have collective agreements allowing for greater potential flexibility and also a highly developed set of state labour market tools, both of which complement each other. In this respect a smoothly functioning social dialogue also impacts very positively on the consumer climate in the country concerned.

One topic on which the forum focussed is the contractual relations between the respective actors in the food supply chain. We are aware that this is a highly sensitive issue, but it is also a very important one. We unions see an urgent need for action here because retail market buying power has major consequences for employment in agriculture and industry. The future competitiveness of the European food supply chain will depend not only on some European directive or other, but rather on the attainment of sustainable and above all fair cooperation between all the respective actors. We hope this forum will make a significant contribution towards achieving this.