EU leaders disregard need for action on social impact of the crisis

24/03/2014 – EAPN reacts to the General Affairs and Spring Councils Counclusions – Whereas EU leaders recognise the continuing importance of the Europe 2020 goals, including on inclusive growth, and the failure of the Targets, calling for the need to ‘step up efforts’, the Conclusions of the Spring Council do not even mention poverty, nor the social impact of the crisis, which is a key part of objective 4 of the AGS!

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FNARS (member of EAPN France): What solutions for the homeless, bactk toe street from 31 March?

19/03/2014 – March 31st marks the end of the winter break, which means evictions suspended during winter will resume and emergency winter accomodation facilities closing down. While figures of the Barometer 115 for the month of February 2014 show an extreme saturation of the accommodation in the 37 departments studied with only 44% of accommodation…

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FNARS (member of EAPN France): What solutions for the homeless, bactk toe street from 31 March?

19/03/2014 – March 31st marks the end of the winter break, which means evictions suspended during winter will resume and emergency winter accomodation facilities closing down. While figures of the Barometer 115 for the month of February 2014 show an extreme saturation of the accommodation in the 37 departments studied with only 44% of accommodation requests that were responded to (55% in Paris), several hundreds of places will close down on March 31 without any solution for people. 

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Inequality: Consequences for society, politics and people: 5-6 March 2014, European Parliament

05/06/03/2014 – EAPN participated in this important and well-attended conference, held in the European Parliament on the 5-6 March, organized by the Progressive Economy Forum and the Social and Democrats Alliance (S&D). The conference analysed the causes and the consequences of the crisis before looking at key priorities for action. Key speakers included Professor Joseph Stigliz, James K Galbraith, Martin Schulz, Jean-Paul Fitoussi, and Kate Pickett (co-author of the Spirit level), followed by detailed workshop discussions on recent academic papers and evening round table debates. Stigliz called inequality “the key problem of our time, which is growing across the globe, conditioned by a wrong economic model. But it´s not just about economics – policies count……how we responded to the crisis has made things worse. Economic inequality leads to political inequality, which leads to new rules of the game that produce more inequality…. The rules of the game in the end are about distribution and redistribution”.

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Recommendations for EU policy to address ‘push-backs’ of migrants’ rights in Greece

20/03/2014 – A joint group of civil society organisations and EU leaders today called for action on EU level to address the daily human rights violations experienced by migrants in Greece, at the borders, in detention and on the streets, including push-backs, unlawful detention, violence and exploitation. The organisations urge European Union policy makers and representatives to take joint responsibility, along with the Greek government, for addressing the challenges there. To address these issues, EU networks and Greek NGOs have released today their joint “Recommendations to the European Union to Urgently Address Criminalisation and Violence Against Migrants in Greece”.

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Investing in children alliance

EU Alliance for Investing in Children – No inclusive growth with increasing child poverty

10/03/2014 – There are 26,5 million children across the European Union at risk of poverty or social exclusion – half a million more than a year ago – and the economic, financial and social crisis is only putting even more children at risk. On the occasion of the EPSCO Council Meeting on 10 March, the EU Alliance for Investing in Children emphasises that tackling and preventing child poverty and social exclusion are key to achieving the Europe 2020 headline targets.

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Commission lacks ambition in replying to first European Citizens’ Initiative

19/03/2014 –  The European Commission (EC) published a Communication today that gives its official response to the first successful European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) which called on the EC “to implement the human right to water and sanitation in European law.” In the Communication, the European Commission does recall the importance of the human right to water and sanitation and states the importance of water as a public good and fundamental value and that “water is not a commercial product.” However, that’s as far as it goes.

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