Mr. Juan Menéndez-Valdés:

I thank the members for all the questions. In response to the question about the composition of our governing board and how we decide on our work programme. Our governing board decides on a four year programme. The board is appointed by the European Commission through the Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, and three representatives from a member state. That is the tripartite approach. We have a representative from the Irish Government, unions and employers. That is the composition in all member states.

They decide our work programme every year but we reserve the capacity to reply to questions presented by a member state or the European Parliament or the Commission. Committee members may recall that the Irish Government requested a report on minimum wages at the start of the crisis when some of the conditions of the memorandum of understanding affected the minimum wage. I was not the director of Eurofound at the time but that was a customised report. We can do a short report on demand free of charge and relatively quickly, if we have the data. We can also develop a full project. We have a limited capacity to do two or three on demand per year if it is meaningful for the European debate and we can start a full research project but the results of that are presented only one year later. If one wants that for a debate in five months’ time it will probably not be ready but members should feel free to come to us.