Earlier this week, our members discussed how the social dimension of the future EU funds is being taken into account in the discussions in the Parliament and the Council during a meeting of our Social Policy Working Group.

On the EU Program for Social Change and Innovation we are glad that the Commission’s proposal to allocate 60% to the Progress axis has been finally kept, and that amendments proposing a specific objective on social protection, social inclusion and fight against poverty separated from the one on employment has been set out in the Progress axis.

On the Common Provisions on structural funds, we appreciate that the EP rapporteurs have deleted the macro-economic conditionalities. However, our proposals to strengthen the link between the use of the funds and the social objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy have not been taken in consideration. Other very controversial issues, which are crucial for us, are the total allocation to the ESF (we support the Commission’s proposal to allocate the 25% of the total budget to the ESF) and its earmarking on social inclusion and fight against poverty (the Commission has proposed the 20% and we agree with this), the allocation to the food programme, and the ex-ante conditionalities.

After the draft report of the European Parliament's rapporteur on the future European Social Fund regulation, Ms Elisabeth Morin-Chartier (EPP), the members of the other political groups in the Committee for Employment and Social Affairs had until last week to send their proposals for amendments. In the meantime, we had the opportunity to take a look at the amendments put forward by the shadow rapporteurs for S&D, the Greens and GUE/NGL. Their proposals reflect to a large extent the key priorities of Social Platform and in particular our concerns on the earmarking for fighting poverty and social inclusion and on the partnership and participation of civil society organisations.