European Anti-Poverty Network: Economic crisis & austerity in southern Europe – threat or opportunity for building a sustainable welfare state?
On Tuesday 13 January, the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN) participated in the first European Social Observatory (OSE) after-work seminar, organised with AK EUROPA and the ÖGB Europabüro, which presented damning new evidence of the negative impact of austerity on welfare states, particularly on social protection and health service, increasing poverty and inequality. The response from Dino Pinelli, Senior Economist from the European Commission’s department for economic and financial affairs (DG ECFIN), recognised the negative impact of austerity, but underlined member state responsibility for choice of measures and the need to continue with the treatment. EAPN’s questions focused on four issues:
- The failure of austerity to promote growth, while directly increasing poverty and inequality
- How European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s and Commissioner Marianne Thyssen’s commitments to embed effective ex-ante social impact assessments (the requirement to assess the social impact of proposed legislation during development and before implementation) to prevent future negative impact will be progressed
- What further action DG ECFIN can take to ensure a better balance between cuts and progressive revenue increases (highlighting the example of the UK where the balance has been 80% to 20% in 2014)
- The need for reassurance that the EU is not running a hidden agenda to roll back welfare states, as hinted in the research findings
