This is an analysis of the European Union’s mid-term review of the current 2000-6 round of the structural funds from the perspective of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) combating poverty and social exclusion.
This is the response of the European Anti-Poverty Network to the publication by the Commission of its financial perspective for 2007-2013.
Considering the Joint Employment Report 2003/2004, key element of the implementation of the Lisbon strategy, EAPN regrets that, in the last developments of the EES, the inclusion objectives set in the revised guidelines are not been respected.
This report sets EAPN networks’ observations alongside the analysis in the Joint Employment Report (JER) adopted by the Commission and Council which evaluates the national implementation of the new employment strategy.
Run by five national EAPN networks (Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and the Netherlands) and completed at the end of August 2003, the project was aimed at defining poverty indicators by crossing the voices of people living in poverty with the knowledge of other actors.
The realities of people experiencing poverty and social exclusion are mostly absent in the discussions around the EU enlargement. The situation as portrayed in this issue of Network News deserves however to get the outmost attention.
Through its contacts with NGOs in the acceding countries, the European Anti Poverty Network has gathered information on the views of NGOs in some of these countries on the process of drawing up the Joint Inclusion Memoranda and on their content.
This election campaign and the public debates it generates offer an important opportunity to reduce the alienation from the EU project that is felt by many citizens and residents in the EU.
How are they worked out and worked up? How can the experience of people experiencing poverty and social exclusion inform them? How do existing indicators apply to the future Member States? These are the questions that this issue sets out to address.