Conny Reuter, President of Social Platform, stated “The overall economic orientation of the EU, and its resulting social consequences, has created great concern about the priorities of the EU, now is the time to address these issues. We need a binding social pact, with concrete actions to be implemented in the next 12 months. These actions should protect the vulnerable and support the employment of young people, and other key target groups, with difficulty in accessing sustainable, quality employment, and social services. This pact is a necessary stepping stone to achieve social and sustainable growth.”

Social Platform’s call is further supported by:

• The Ministers of employment and social affairs: the last EPSCO Council called on Heads of State to tackle increasing poverty and social exclusion, through active inclusion strategies, and stressed that fiscal consolidation efforts should be accompanied by enhanced employment and social policies.
• The Ministers of finances: the last ECOFIN Council recalled that “when designing reforms, equity considerations and distributional effects should be taken into account” since “public acceptance of budgetary consolidation and major structural reforms is key to successful implementation”.
• The European Parliament who called for policy coherence and increasing ambition to achieve the Europe 2020 targets, to improve the quality of employment and to tackle poverty and social exclusion in decisions on the guidance for the European economy at the Spring Council.
• The European Commission (in the Annual Growth Survey 2012) which called on members states to prioritise the “protection of the vulnerable” and highlighted that as the situation is now the target of lifting 20 million people out of poverty by 2020 will not be met.

As a starting point for developing a social pact, actions should include:

• Defend social protection and further improve the effectiveness of social protection systems
• Implement integrated Active Inclusion strategies (minimum income, access to services, access to employment)
• Ensure access to affordable quality services
• Identify the most urgent needs and propose concrete actions, targeting in particular young people who are not in employment, education or training.

Social Platform also reiterates its opposition to the new intergovernmental Treaty on stability, coordination and governance in the economic and monetary union that will be signed at the European Summit.

Read our letter to the heads of state and governments