On 18–19 September 2025, more than two hundred political leaders and social partners gathered in Portugal for the Porto Social Forum, organised by the Portuguese government in cooperation with the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European Council and the Danish Presidency of the Council of the EU.
This event followed the Porto Social Summit of 2021 – which set three major social targets for Europe by 2030 (employment, training, poverty reduction) – and the intermediate edition in 2023. EFFE has actively participated in all three editions to defend the specific issues of the domestic & home care sector.
The Porto Social Forum 2025: “Quality Jobs in a Competitive Social Europe”
This edition took place in a context marked by a growing need for European competitiveness and social justice, against the backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty and the twin green and digital transitions. Discussions were structured around four main themes: the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR); the promotion of quality jobs for a more competitive Europe; the global dimension of Europe’s social model in times of geopolitical tension; and the fair and free mobility of the workforce.
A joint political declaration
In the preparation of the Forum, a declaration was drafted by EU labour ministers, European institutions and social partners. It recalls that social spending is not a cost but a crucial investment in the EU’s prosperity, and that the European social model is a strategic asset in the face of climate challenges, demographic ageing and global geopolitical realities. The declaration also underlines that European competitiveness must rely not only on infrastructure and innovation, but also on quality jobs, social progress and equal opportunities.
It further calls for accelerated efforts to meet the targets set in 2021, while also addressing the definition of job quality – encompassing fair wages, safe and healthy working conditions, access to training, gender equality, collective bargaining and effective social protection.
Key messages from political leaders
Portuguese Labour Minister Rosario Palma Ramalho stressed the urgent need to support families, including financially, in order to address the challenges of ageing and low birth rates. She also called for the development of long-term care and childcare policies to relieve the care burden that still largely falls on women, and for stronger protection of atypical jobs, which are often characterised by lower wages, poorer working conditions and insufficient social coverage.
Executive Vice-President and Commissioner for Education, Quality Jobs and Social Rights Roxana Minzatu reminded participants that competitiveness and the social dimension of Europe are interdependent. Economic resilience, she stressed, can only be achieved with a skilled, motivated and protected workforce. She called for the integration of a fourth target on job quality into the EPSR Action Plan, for measurable follow-up of these objectives, and for labour legislation to adapt to the challenges of digitalisation, artificial intelligence and longer working lives.
Several speakers also underlined the importance of placing collective bargaining and social dialogue at the heart of any initiative, noting that social partners know the realities of the workplace better than anyone. Others highlighted that many people remain excluded from the labour market, particularly women, due to their care responsibilities – making it essential to increase investment in accessible and affordable long-term care and childcare services.
The panel on building fair workplaces and work-life balance stressed that improving work-life balance is both an economic imperative and a matter of social justice, especially to reduce gender inequalities and help younger generations integrate into the labour market. Commissioner Dubravka Šuica underlined that these issues are closely linked to demographic trends in the EU, and that it is unrealistic to address ageing and low birth rates without major investment in care. Commissioner Šuica underlined the need to protect the right to stay at home while ensuring freedom of choice for all.
MEP Lina Gálvez insisted on the full implementation of the Work-Life Balance Directive, which remains incomplete, and argued for a genuine European Care Deal. She called for ex ante and ex post evaluation of existing policies and mechanisms, as well as a revision of maternity and paternity leave to ensure a fairer sharing of care responsibilities. Europe’s demographic challenges, she argued, cannot be solved by keeping women at home; instead, freedom of choice must be guaranteed for all, without losing talent or reinforcing inequalities.
In the same spirit, the International Labour Organization (ILO) recalled that the care economy is the cornerstone of a resilient economy. Care work, far from being a “comfort”, requires public and private investment but can generate millions of new, quality jobs in the EU. Finally, Portuguese Secretary of State for European Affairs Inês Domingos emphasised that better jobs – with fair pay, safe and healthy environments and attention to mental health – are essential to attract and retain workers in the context of major demographic change.
The conclusion of the Forum was clear: competitiveness and fairness are not two separate agendas but one and the same priority, which requires structural investment in the care economy and full recognition of its social and economic value.
EFFE: defending care, job quality and social dialogue
EFFE welcomes the recognition at the Forum of the importance of care, job quality and social dialogue as pillars of a competitive and social Europe. Our federation stresses that the domestic & home care sector remains too affected by undeclared work, which generates precariousness, fiscal losses and difficulties for families in accessing services. It is therefore urgent to formalise and make the sector sustainable.
For EFFE, job quality must be based on adequate pay, decent working conditions, gender equality, access to training and a fair work-life balance. This is why we are actively involved in shaping the Quality Jobs Roadmap, calling for stronger social dialogue, formal recognition of the sector’s economic and social role, and the adoption of sustainable solvency mechanisms.
Dom&Care Value: a strategic tool for social policies
To support this vision, EFFE has developed Dom&Care Value, an innovative economic simulator that assesses the impact of solvency mechanisms in the domestic care sector. The tool shows that one euro invested in declared employment generates a positive socio-fiscal return for the state. It also makes it possible to test different policy scenarios, such as adjusting subsidies for direct employment, and to highlight both the direct economic benefits (taxes, contributions) and indirect benefits (return to work of informal carers).
Dom&Care Value goes beyond economic analysis: it is a genuine strategic lever to design effective social policies, support families and address the challenges of demographic ageing and childcare. It fully reflects the Porto Declaration’s message that social spending is not a cost but an investment crucial to the EU’s prosperity.
Conclusion: building a competitive and inclusive social Europe
The Porto Social Forum 2025 confirmed that the Union’s future depends on balancing competitiveness with social justice. The challenges of ageing, family support, digitalisation and labour mobility cannot be addressed without putting job quality at the centre.
By participating actively in Porto, EFFE reaffirmed its commitment to defending atypical employment, promoting long-term care and childcare as pillars of an inclusive Europe, and providing policymakers with concrete tools such as Dom&Care Value to demonstrate that social spending is a profitable investment for the EU’s prosperity.
We now hope that the issues identified at the Forum will be reflected in the Quality Jobs Act, announced by the President of the European Commission in her State of the Union address. This initiative, aimed at securing quality, fairly paid jobs in response to rising living costs and growing precarity, must deliver ambitious measures to strengthen social dialogue, collective bargaining and worker protection in the digital economy and during ongoing transitions.