EU leaders give signs of hope

EAPN Press releases

EAPN General Assembly welcomes European Council’s new Strategic Agenda – Brussels, 01 July 2014 – The European Anti-Poverty Network held its 2014 General Assembly in Tallinn, Estonia, on 27-28 June 2014.. The General Assembly welcomed the seemingly positive shift of the European Council’s new Strategic Agenda endorsed on 27 June regarding social issues, which reflects several EAPN’s concerns and key messages over the last years. In its final Declaration, EAPN’s General Assembly addressed the new Members of the European Parliament, recalling the achievements of the previous European Parliament and highlighting the priorities at stake, with the Mid-Term Review of the) – Europe 2020 Strategy, coming up in 2015 which has so far failed to deliver on its promises and highlighting EAPN’s current preparation of its own position. EAPN also endorsed the membership of two new networks in Croatia and Latvia raising the number of member networks to a total of 32.

Poverty Alliance urges UK Government to re-think child poverty strategy

EAPN National Networks News

26/06/2014 – Following the publication of the Child Poverty Strategy 2014-17, the Poverty Alliance has called on the UK Government to re-think their approach to child poverty. The current strategy ignores the macro-economic context and the demand side of the labour market, choosing instead to focus on the individual causes of poverty. The strategy also pays no regard to independent child poverty predictions and focuses too heavily on work as a way out of poverty. 

BAPN: BMIN holds conference on adequate and accessible minimum income

EAPN National Networks News

10/06/2014 – BMIN (Belgian Minimum Income Network) organized the conference “Towards the progressive realization of an adequate and accessible minimum income.” The first results of the project were presented as well as BMIN’s recommendations for European and national levels. The following political parties took part in the conference: CDH, Ecolo, FDF, Groen, MR, N-VA, PVDA, Sp.a and PS. All parties confirmed the need for a strong minimum income above the poverty line, and recognized the importance of easy access to minimum income, inter alia, through the automatic granting of rights. Several parties also reaffirmed the target to take 530,000 people out of poverty by 2020  If political parties keep their promise, then the punitive conditions that restrict peoples access to minimum income schemes should be removed.