Seminar and Roundtable Debate
EAPN organised a round table on Friday 3 October 2014 to present its own assessment and proposals and to create a space for debate between EU Institutions and other stakeholders on how real progress on the poverty target can be made. It offered an opportunity to assess why the Strategy and the Semester has failed to deliver on poverty, participation and growing inequality and to discuss concrete recommendations for change to feed into the Mid-Term Review process.
The Europe 2020 Strategy offered hope of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, setting for the first time a poverty target to reduce poverty by at least 20 million by 2020. At the mid-term of this objective, poverty has not decreased, but increased by 6.6 million to 124,2 – 1 in 4 of the population. With the launch of the public consultation to feed into the Commission’s Mid-Term Review of Europe 2020 Strategy in 2015, stakeholders had a key opportunity to highlight their concerns.
Participants: Around 30 EAPN members who participated from the national level, including people with direct experience of poverty, and 70 Brussels-based stakeholders.
Programme
The programme can be accessed here (PDF).
Key speakers
from the Social Protection Committee, European Commission, European Parliament, ETUC, and other civil society actors and people with direct experience of poverty.
Presentations
- Opening Session: Commissioner László Andor, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (video)
- Session 1: Why is Europe 2020 still failing on poverty?
- Voices from the ground: inputs from People with Direct Experience of Poverty (video by Nellie Epinat/EAPN)
- Bart Vanhercke, Director of the Observatoire Sociale Européen, Can the EU become a Social Union?
- Graciela Malgesini, Chair of the EAPN EU Inclusion Strategies Group, EAPN Assessment of Europe 2020/European Semester – 2014 NRPs/CSRs
- Session 2: What needs to change? What recommendations for the Mid-Term Review
- Paul Ginnell, Chair of the EAPN EU Inclusion Strategies Group, EAPN Proposals for the Mid-Term Review
Key related documents
- EAPN’s Input to the Mid-Term Review of the Europe 2020 Strategy Can the Strategy be made fit for purpose enough to deliver its promises on poverty reduction? (October 2014)
- EAPN’s Assessment of the National Reform Programmes 2014 From Austerity to Inclusive Growth – what progress? (October 2014)
- EAPN’s proposals for CSR recommendations 2014 (March 2014)
- EAPN’s Handbook for policy-makers to build stakeholder dialogue Giving a Voice to Citizens (September 2014)
See also this video explaining EAPN’s analysis of the Mid-Term Review in simple terms.
Conference Report
You can access the full report here.
Photos
Take a look at some pictures of the event on our Picasaweb album
Contact
Contact the Policy Coordinator Ms Sian Jones for information on this event and the issue: sian.jones@eapn.eu
Photo: © Rebecca Lee, EAPN
These events are supported by the European Community Programme for Employment and Social Solidarity-Progress (2007-2013). The information contained in this document does not necessarily reflect the position or opinion of the European Commission.