Having examined the legal nature and value of the European Committee of Social Rights’ (ECSR’s) decisions on the merits, it is now time to consider the actual effectiveness of the quasi-jurisdictional monitoring activity carried out by the ECSR in the collective complaints procedure, that is, the extent to which its monitoring has a real impact on situations that are the object of complaints, in the sense of securing greater respect for social rights obligations by the European states concerned.

From this standpoint, it certainly cannot be said that the collective complaints procedure always – or even usually – results in resolution of the problem at stake, with the national situation concerned brought fully and rapidly into line with the Charter's requirements, in terms of social rights protection.

There are in fact many cases where, even after repeated findings of violation by the ECSR, the situation of non-compliance with the Charter continues to go unremedied for several years, and the state concerned fails to respond and take remedial action. This clearly emerges, unfortunately, from the ECSR's annual ‘Findings’ on states’ follow-up to violation decisions affecting them.

Nevertheless, there are also numerous examples of states that have spontaneously and quite rapidly reacted to ECSR's violation decisions, by taking steps and measures to rectify or improve the situation, in order to bring it into conformity with the Charter provisions. And in a large majority of cases, the fact that a collective complaint has been submitted to the ECSR and that the Committee has adopted a violation decision still appears to be an important factor in the state's positive change of attitude – in terms of social rights implementation – in respect of the situation that was highlighted by the complaint.

As explained above, once the ECSR has adopted a violation decision, it continues to monitor the situation, and the state concerned must regularly report to it on the measures eventually taken to give effect to the decision. This clearly helps to ensure that states that are the addressees of ECSR's violation decision do not remain inactive but somehow undertake to bring the situation more into line with the Charter's requirements.

However, we believe that other factors are still more important in making the collective complaints procedure a suitable instrument for securing the effective implementation of the rights enshrined in the Charter.