Commission unveils its new Quality Job Roadmap

On 4 December, Executive Vice-President Roxana Mînzatu presented the long-awaited Quality Jobs Roadmap. The initiative is designed to strengthen job quality across the EU. It sets priorities such as, fair wages, safe and healthy working conditions, access to training and skills development, strong social protection systems, and support for companies and workers during the green and digital transitions.

Cooperatives Europe welcomes this roadmap and its ambition to align competitiveness with fairness and workers’ protection. Cooperative enterprises embed social justice and solidarity into the workplace. Through fair working conditions, democratic participation in decision-making, and collective ownership, cooperatives ensure that workers not only have jobs, but have a say in how their enterprise is run.

We call for this Roadmap to stay ambitious in its objective and to deliver concrete results. The text notes that quality jobs depend on “an environment where businesses, including the self-employed, start-ups and small firms, can innovate, grow, attract investment and talent”. Yet cooperative enterprises still face significant barriers that limit their ability to create quality employment, innovate, and scale. These include limited access to finance, unsuitable state aid and procurement rules, outdated or incomplete legal frameworks, and a lack of support for business transfers such as workers’ buyouts.

What Comes Next?

The roadmap paves the way for a forthcoming Quality Jobs Act, expected in 2026, which should introduce concrete measures to modernise EU regulation, support employment, and strengthen social cohesion. In the months ahead, Cooperatives Europe will work to ensure that cooperative values and perspectives are fully reflected in the implementation of the Roadmap and in the development of the future legislative act.

Read on the European Commission website