Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2012, published 102nd ILC session (2013)

Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952 (No. 102) - Spain (Ratification: 1988)

The Committee notes the Government’s report received in October 2011, as well as the annual reports on the application of the European Code of Social Security for the period 2007 to 2012, containing replies to its previous direct request.

Part II (Medical care) of the Convention. The Committee notes that the report fails to include information on this part of the Convention. According to the 17th Report on the European Code, Royal Legislative Decree No. 16/2012 of 20 April, adopting urgent measures to guarantee a sustainable national health system and to improve the quality and security of benefits, introduces important changes in relation to the individual and material coverage of medical care. The measures adopted are intended to carry out a structural reform of the national health system to ensure its solvency and viability, and to remedy the unsustainable deficit in public health expenditure. In this context, the Royal Legislative Decree establishes common standards for health insurance throughout the national territory; specifies common health services throughout the State, with three different levels (basic, supplementary and accessory services), which differ from the supplementary services of the autonomous communities; and modifies the provision of pharmaceutical and sanitary products and increases the share by beneficiaries in the cost of outpatient pharmaceutical care. While noting that the Royal Legislative Decree is intended to maintain the guarantee to citizens of public, free and universal health assistance, the Committee requests the Government to ensure, by means of a comparative analysis, that the minimum benefits guaranteed by Part II of the Convention remain in place.

Part XIII (Common provisions). Organization and administration of social security. The 17th Report on the European Code notes the adoption of Act No. 27/2011 of 1 August 2011 updating, adapting and modernizing the social security system, which modifies the structure of the national social security system with a view to ensuring both the broadest possible coverage of protection and stable and solid financing to guarantee adequate social benefits for future generations. With regard to the management of the system, the Act authorizes the Government to create the State Social Security Administration Agency, which will integrate the National Social Security Institute, the General Social Security Treasury, the Marine Social Institute and the Social Security Information Technology Administration. Royal Decree No. 1823/2011 of 21 December 2011 also reforms the current ministerial structure. The Ministry of Labour and Immigration becomes the Ministry of Employment and Social Security, and it establishes the following higher bodies: the Secretariat of State for Employment and the Secretariat of State for Social Security.

The Committee hopes that the Government will be in a position to provide detailed information in its next report on the new structure of the social security system, with an indication of the new distribution of responsibilities for the administration of the various branches covered by the Convention. The Committee also asks the Government to explain the institutional channels and practical machinery to ensure effective coordination between the employment and social security policies and, respectively, between the two Secretariats responsible for these fields within the new Ministry of Employment and Social Security. The Committee observes from experience that, even where responsibility for these two objectives is the competence of a single ministry, social security and employment promotion are not always coordinated and that, in certain European countries, anti-crisis measures for the recovery of the labour market often only include measures to make labour legislation more flexible, but do not cover the corresponding social security measures to ensure adequate protection for the new flexible forms of employment.