EAPN action against the Services Directive: In defense of quality universal services

EAPN actively campaigned against the Services Directive since its inception, (known as the Bolkestein Directive) on three key areas: To get Services of General Interest excluded from the Directive. To get the specificity of social and health services recognized and excluded. To get the “country of origin” principle abolished, which could have led to social…

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Building upon the strengthened partnership principle

For the first time, Article 11 of the Structural Funds regulation explicitly recognizes the principle of partnership with civil society organisations, which “shall cover the preparation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of operational programmes”. Implementing partnership across the whole Structural Funds process is an obligation upon Member States, but the quality partnership takes various faces across…

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Stronger spending on social inclusion measures

In line with the renewed Lisbon Agenda, the emphasis on jobs, competitiveness and growth might hinder a rather holistic approach to socio-economic development. EAPN believes structural funds should be instrumental in meeting the EU’s social inclusion objectives, which implies strengthened focus on the following measures: measures efficiently tackling in work poverty “positive” activation measures measures…

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