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EU Statement - ILO 355th GB - Agenda of the future sessions of the ILC

21.11.2025
Geneva
Press and information team of the Delegation to the UN in Geneva

ILO Governing Body, 355th session 

17 – 27 November 2025

Agenda of the future sessions of the ILC

GB.353/INS/2/1

EU statement

 

Chair,

I speak on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.

The candidate countries North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania1, Ukraine, Republic of Moldova and Georgia, and the EFTA country Norway, align themselves with this statement.

We align ourselves with the IMEC statement.

  1. We thank the Office for the document on the Agenda of the future sessions of the International Labour Conference (ILC), which provides a comprehensive overview of the issues and questions that will arise for the forthcoming Conferences.
  2. ILC sessions are key moments in the life of the Organization, giving a strategic direction for the work of the Organization and, in particular, to elaborate and adopt international labour standards.
  3. We support the strategic and coherent approach to setting the Conference agenda, as approved in 2014. We are particularly committed to ensuring that the ILO has an up-to-date body of standards. In this regard, we support two important points in the paper presented by the Office:
  • First, that the Governing Body (GB) follows up on the recommendations of the Standards Review Mechanism Tripartite Working Group on OSH by scheduling normative discussions on "ergonomics and manual handling" and "machinery protection" in the coming years.
  • Second, that outdated formulations with inappropriately gendered language, colonial connotations, or offensive and discriminatory terms are no longer used in international labour standards. We believe it is essential that international labour standards remain relevant, inclusive, and respectful of human rights, while preserving their authority and effectiveness in an evolving world. We suggest including the issue of gendered language and other inappropriate terms and references for all international labour standards on the agenda of the 115th Session (2027) of the ILC.
  1. We also thank the Office for the information provided on other topics under preparation, concerning demographic change and the protection of whistleblowers in the public service.
  2. We regret that the issue of "supply chains" is not addressed in greater detail in the Office’s document, especially since the topic has already gone through substantive preparations, most recently the mid-term evaluation of the Strategy, and an analysis of normative gaps. In this regard, we look forward to finalising outcomes 4 and 5 of the ILO Strategy in order to hold a fully informed discussion on that subject next March and until then we would like to keep open the possibility of holding a standard setting discussion on this in 2028.
  3. We support the Draft Decision Point

 

1North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process