ABSTRACT
The role that the social partners, and more specifically trade union organizations, could play in future in the field of social protection, both in the management of schemes and the implementation of reforms. The involvement of trade union organizations is not limited to the management of social security systems. In many cases, they also play a major role in developing reforms of the systems. Social protection, or to be more precise social security, is not in theory a Community competence in the European Union. It is in the field of supplementary pension schemes, and particularly in the establishment of schemes, that the intervention of trade union organizations is most noticeable. In the view of the European Trade Union Confederation, which initiated reflection on this subject, it is clear that supplementary health schemes cannot be left to the laws of the market, which are a factor of social exclusion and patient selection.
