21/08/2014 – The European Anti-Poverty Network has prepared a set of questions to the European Commissioners-designate who will seek to be confirmed by the European Parliament after they have been scrutinized…
How will the Europe 2020 Strategy Mid-Term Review reduce poverty and inequality?
EAPN organised a round table on Friday 3 October 2014 to present its own assessment and proposals and to create a space for debate between EU Institutions and other stakeholders on how real progress on the poverty target can be made. It offered an opportunity to assess why the Strategy and the Semester has failed to deliver on poverty, participation and growing inequality and to discuss concrete recommendations for change to feed into the Mid-Term Review process.
In July 2014, the EU Alliance for a Democratic, Social and Sustainable European Semester (Semester Alliance) publishes its Toolkit for Engaging in Europe 2020 and the European Semester. Aimed at the national members of the European organisations which constitute the Semester Alliance, it is designed to support them in engaging with Europe 2020 and the European Semester, including the upcoming Mid-Term Review.
14/07/2014 – This 17th July 2014, Vice president of EAPN, Letizia Cesarini Sforza will be representing EAPN at the Informal Meeting of EU Environment and Employment Ministers in Milano. EU ministers from labour and environment will discuss in 4 different workshops employment and green growth focusing on job creation and skill’s development as well as on other concrete measures such as shifting the tax burden away from labour onot energy.
25/06/2014 – The European Commission has launched a consultation on the quality of drinking water supply in response to the ECI right2water, the only successful ECI so far. We invite civil society organisations and European citizens to participate in this consultation and to address the human rights aspect of water, the responsibility of governments to provide the service, the fact that it is a “natural monopoly” (there is no market!) and to address that outsourcing or delegation of services do NOT lead to better quality.
01/07/2014 – Europe+, an alliance of 40+ European civil society organisations working together for positive democratic change in the EU through the active and better involvement of citizens, wrote a letter to the new MEPs to engage with them in a constructive dialogue to ensure civil society participates fully in this new legislative term. Europe+ builds on the recommendations of the 2013 European Year of Citizens Alliance that developed a policy agenda to ensure a vibrant European democracy where decisions are made in line with citizens’ needs, aspirations and visions for society.
26/06/2014 – The European Council are meeting today in Ypres and tomorrow in Brussels to discuss the core priorities for the European Union for the next five years, based on…
16/06/2014 – EAPN was invited to a conference on Active Inclusion to Social Investment in Brussels, co- organized by the European Economic and Social Committee and Eurofound, aiming at focusing on the measures taken at European level to step up active inclusion and social investment. Barbara Helfferich, Director of EAPN, participated in the panel on the social policy agenda: from active inclusion to social investment, which followed the keynote speech by Social Affairs Commissioner Laslo Andor.
16/06/2014 – The EU Alliance for Investing in Children sent out a press release ahead of the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO) 19-20 June 2014 and in view of their expected approval of the Country-Specific Recommendations, as a reaction to the 2014 National Reform Programmes.
14-15/05/2014 – As elections in the EU were approaching, a People’s Tribunal Hearing on the EU’s response to the crisis took place in Brussels, organised by Corporate Europe Observatory. On 15 and 16 May, representatives from organisations across Europe gave testimony to an era of financial, economic and social crisis which began in 2008. Their verdict? The EU’s policies have taken Europe on a course towards social and political regression. Fintan Farrell, from EAPN Secretariat, contributed to the Tribunal on behalf of EAPN with a presentation on the impact of austerity on poverty and social exclusion in the EU.