23/02/2015- European Socioeconomic Governance in Action: Coordinating Social Policies in the third European Semester. OSE latest working paper, to which EAPN Europe has contributed, tackles recent governance changes and their…
23/02/2015- Socialising the European Semester? Economic Governance and Social Policy Coordination in Europe 2020. This report, prepared for the Swedish Institute of European Studies, argues about a progressive socialisation of…
08/12/2014 – EAPN publishes its assessment of the 2015 Annual Growth Survey and and Draft Joint Employment Report “Fresh start or broken promises?” with a series of 6 key messages. EAPN’s assessment is sent today to the Ministers for Employment and Social Affairs ahead of their EPSCO meeting on 11 December, where they will discuss progress on the Europe 2020 Strategy and the Mid-Term Review.
02/02/2015 – Delivering Social Inclusion Through Structural Funds is EAPN’s latest handbook for NGOs on how to use Structurals Funds for social inclusion. Compiled by EAPN Members, it outlines EAPN’s guiding principles to assess a good practice of SF-funded projects on social inclusion and showcases examples of NGO-driven projects funded by Structural Funds under the previous funding round.
01/10/2014 – The labour market situation of young people in Europe is one of today’s most debated topics, with unemployment rates reaching 23.4% in 2013, and over 55% in countries such as Greece or Spain. Yet, a less known number is even more staggering: 29.7% of Europe’s young men and women experienced poverty and social exclusion in 2012 (EU-28, Eurostat, 2012).
8/10/2014 – EAPN has invested a large amount of resources in trying to engage and monitor the delivery of the Europe 2020 Strategy with inputs to the National Reform Programmes and proposals for Country-specific Recommendations (see other publications in this section). In 2015, the EU Institutions, under the auspices of the new European Parliament and Commission will carry out a Mid-Term Review of the Strategy. This process was launched on the 5 March 2014 with the Commission’s Stock-Taking Communication assessment of the Europe 2020 strategy and followed on 5 May, with the launch of an on-line public consultation with a deadline of 31 October.
Our overwhelming concern is: Can the Europe 2020 Strategy be made fit for purpose enough to deliver its promises on poverty reduction?
8/10/2014 – This year marks the last round of National Reform Programmes (NRPs) before the Mid-Term Review of the Europe 2020 strategy in 2015. Whilst some signs of recovery have been seen in some countries, Europe’s social crisis continues to worsen, as a result of rising unemployment and continuing austerity policies.
In this context, EAPN members have continued to try to engage in the Semester and Europe 2020 process at national and EU level, with the hope that increased engagement could help to bring real progress on effective policies to meet the poverty target. EAPN’s report From Austerity to Inclusive Growth – what progress? builds on the 2013 NRP Assessment: Widening the Gap and EAPN member’s assessment and proposals for Country-specific Recommendations for 2014.
01/10/2014 – Today, EAPN releases its handbook Giving a Voice to Citizens, addressed to EU- and national-level policy makers to help them build stakeholder engagement dialogue; ie effective decision making, that take into account all the different parties or groups impacted by the policies concerned. The handbook provides common principles, concrete tools and tips and draws on concrete practice at EU national and local levels for authorities to apply and get more effective decision-making processes.
16/09/2014 – EAPN issues its new and long-awaited Explainer on Poverty and Inequality in the EU, an update of the Explainer of the same name issued in 2009 and one of EAPN’s most popular publications. This explainer sets out to provide a simple introduction to the poverty debate. It focuses primarily on current perspectives on the nature and extent of poverty, its causes and its links to inequality. It explains how poverty is understood and measured currently in the EU, and highlights some of the shortcomings of these approaches.
17/07/2014 – Since last summer, EU countries have stepped up their efforts to make it easier to live, work or do business in another EU country, according to the latest edition of the Single Market Scoreboard released by the European Commission today.