Review of Europe 2020 should push the EU to finally deliver on its poverty target
Press release, Milan July 18, 2014
Four years after the start of the Europe 2020 Strategy, its failure to deliver on its target to bring down the number of people living in poverty by 20 million by 20120 is becoming more and more apparent. Instead of moving forward, poverty has increased by 10 million in 5 years, affecting now one out of four people in the EU.
On July 17 and 18 EU ministers for employment and social affairs met at the informal EPSCO in Milan to discuss among others the poverty target in the context of the upcoming review of Europe 2020. Addressing the ministers at this occasion, Social Platform called on all member states to take more ambitious and quick actions to deliver on the poverty target. The EU and member states must therefore make maximum use of the tools and processes at their disposal.
Consistency between economic and social policies is completely missing and not enough is done to reverse the further deterioration of the European Social Model. We have seen that member states, under Commission and Council directions, were able to agree to fiscal control on their budgets. The same commitment should be shown for the EU’s social objectives.
"To bring the EU back on track with the Europe 2020 poverty target, financial and economic policies have to be rebalanced with strong social policies with the view of re-prioritising the social objectives of the strategy," said Heather Roy, President of Social Platform, "there also can be no question of dropping the target to reduce poverty and social exclusion. This would render the inclusive growth pillar of the strategy meaningless."
To improve the performance of the EU and its member states on the poverty target, decision making processes should also be opened up to social NGOs in developing policies and in the implementation of economic and social priorities.
"We want to thank the Italian EU Presidency for taking a step forward on civil dialogue by inviting us to participate in this informal EPSCO meeting on equal footing with the EU ministers and the social partners", said Heather Roy.
During the informal EPSCO Social Platform also contributed to the discussions on a common European unemployment benefit scheme and on the importance of the social economy pointing out the added value of the social economy to the fight against poverty . On July 17 we participated in the Informal Joint meeting of environmental and social ministers.
ENDS
