Semester Alliance sees CSRs as insufficient to address inclusive growth

EAPN Press releases

Brussels, 25/06/2014 – The Semester Alliance, a broad European coalition bringing together environmental, social and equality NGOs and trade unions, releases its initial assessment of the European Commission’s proposals on Country-Specific Recommendations (CSRs) in view of the European Heads of States meeting on 26-27 June. Whilst welcoming some progress on more inclusive and sustainable CSRs, it is still seriously undermined by macroeconomic priorities focusing almost exclusively on austerity and competitiveness. The Semester Alliance also highlights the importance of increasing involvement of civil-society stakeholders, still seriously lacking in the CSR process.

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EAPN releases its 10 arguments in support of Active Inclusion

EAPN position papers and reports

18/06/2014 – Active Inclusion is a strategy developed by the European Commission in 2008 and is designed to support people of working age who are experiencing social exclusion to live a life in dignity and help them move towards a decent job or to get more confidence and skills to participate more actively in their communities. However, little progress has been made in providing an integrated comprehensive strategy for active inclusion which combines adequate minimum support, inclusive labour market with access to quality services. In this short leaflet, EAPN gives 10 indisputable arguments for an integrated active-inclusion strategy, to reduce poverty, exclusion and inequalities and to enable everyone to live a decent life and participate in society.

EAPN participates in High-Level Reflecting Group – Socializing the European Semester

EAPN News

13/11/2015 – Sian Jones, EAPN Policy Coordinator, was invited to participate in a small Reflecting Group composed of experts from EU institutions and stakeholders alike, to provide essential feedback for the completion of the final report due beginning of December 2015 on ‘Further Socializing the European Semester:  Moving forward for the social Triple A’. The report  provides the ‘state of play’ of how social and employment issues are being considered in the semester process – including important new developments in the 2015 cycle.

Poverty in Europe is getting worse, not better

EU Institutions News

Euractiv, 30/10/2015 – Member states have committed to lifting 20 million people out of poverty by 2020. But this has been hard to do in a time of economic recession, writes Georges Dassis, the President of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC).The record number of entries for the 2015 Civil Society Prize of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) on the theme of “Combating poverty” shows the problem is getting worse, not better. Nearly one in four EU citizen (about 120 million people) faces the risk of poverty. The European Union member states are committed to lifting 20 million people out of poverty by 2020.