On 18-20 November 2004, EAPN held its fifteenth General Assembly in Groningen, Netherlands. This year the key note theme was: “The EU we want – tackling poverty and social exclusion in an enlarged EU”.
This paper was prepared for the Dutch Presidency Conference “A Social Europe – Let’s Deliver”, Rotterdam 8-9 November 2004.
According to EAPN, the Kok report fails to grapple with the complexity of the Lisbon Agenda, and ignores the commitment made in Lisbon in March 2000 in relation to the eradication of poverty and social exclusion.
The report of the High Level Group chaired by Wim Kok in many ways contradicts the ‘Lisbon Agenda’ that was agreed by Heads of State and Governments in 2000 and ignores the commitment that was made in relation to the eradication of poverty and the combat of social exclusion.
EAPN welcomes the proposal as a step towards guaranteeing a future to the learning gained to date through the OMC.
This document (35 pages) gathers the EAPN position papers presented on the occasion of the Third European Round Table on Poverty and Social Exclusion, Rotterdam, 18-19 October 2004.
This EAPN statement is based on the responses by NGOs to the first Round of National Action Plans on Social Inclusion in the new Member States and to the Joint Inclusion Memoranda in the candidate countries.
This position paper was presented on the occasion of the Third European Round Table on Poverty and Social Exclusion which took place in Rotterdam on 18-19 October 2004.
The document is the report of the reflection seminar EAPN held in Porto on 29 and 30 April 2004 on the current trends in the European Employment Strategy.
The report identifies the major achievements of the National Action Plans on Inclusion to June 2004. It must be remembered that the NAPs Inclusion process is not quite four years old.