The 23rd European Meeting of People Experiencing Poverty (PEP), held in Brussels on 11–12 December 2025, took place at a decisive moment for Europe’s social future. As the European Union moves towards its first-ever European Anti-Poverty Strategy (APS), with the stated objective of eradicating poverty by 2050, the question facing European institutions, Member States, and civil society is no longer whether people experiencing poverty should be involved in policymaking, but how participation is understood, resourced, and embedded in a meaningful and lasting way across all levels of governance.
In this context, the 23rd PEP Meeting was conceived as more than a policy dialogue or consultation exercise. It was designed as a space of collective empowerment, capacity-building, political and strategic reflection, recognising that meaningful participation does not occur automatically through invitation alone. Instead, it requires deliberate investment in people’s confidence, skills, safety, and collective power, as well as institutional willingness to recognise lived experience as a form of expertise.
Bringing together 52 People Experiencing Poverty (PEP) delegates from national networks across Europe, the meeting marked a central pillar of EAPN’s broader participation work throughout 2025.