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It is clear that Europe’s governments have made some progress in developing more coherent and clearer anti-poverty strategies over the last three years. It is also clear, however, that we will not reach or even move towards the objective to ‘make a decisive impact on the eradication of poverty and social exclusion by 2010 with ‘more of the same’. To achieve this, we need a serious boost to the strategy, of which the proposals above provide only some indications.
This must include an injection of renewed political energy into the fight against poverty. It is the responsibility of all of us who are active in the EAPN and in the fight against poverty generally to ensure that this challenge is kept at the top of the political agenda, and is boosted by in the new European Parliament and Commission and by increased attention ad actions at national level.
Failure to do this will lead to a prolongation of the misery and injustice which poverty represents a distortion of societies across Europe and a discrediting of the European Project and of political leadership generally.