Press

On November 13, the European Commission launched the third European Semester with the publication of the Annual Growth Survey (AGS) for 2014. Social Platform is dismayed that the AGS is once again missing the necessary recommendations and guidelines to address the social situation that “remains depressed” in Europe. We fear that it will not help achieve the Europe 2020 poverty and employment targets.

We welcome that for the third time Tackling unemployment and the social consequences of the crisis has been identified as one of the five key priorities of the AGS. However, once again no concrete proposals or recommendations have been formulated to address this adequately. The continuing overarching approach of the AGS to focus on economic recovery and growth disregards and potentially goes against the inclusive growth pillar of the Europe 2020 Strategy and the commitment of the EU to social cohesion as a whole.

“With one out of four people in poverty and 11% unemployment it is clear that the current approach has not delivered on the Europe 2020 poverty and employment targets. We need to set the right priorities and a much stronger commitment is required from the EU and member states”, said Heather Roy, President of Social Platform.

Member states are once again asked to link social assistance to activation measures, in order to improve the performance of social protection systems. We however reject such conditionality that only looks at people from the perspective of putting them into employment, disregarding that not all people can work, and focusing on the punitive withdrawal of basic benefits and services.

Civil society and social partners have to be considered as true partners in developing and implementing European and national policies and reforms, and cannot be used as mere channels for their promotion. It is positive to read in the AGS a commitment and call for better involving the social partners in the European Semester process and in the design and implementation of policy responses. This should be complemented by the meaningful and structured involvement of Civil Society Organisations in European governance and the European Semester process in particular. It is only through this kind of involvement

“With unemployment and poverty rates continuing to rise, we cannot afford to keep going as we have before,” stated Heather Roy: “We do not have the time to wait for change to come from the current approach, we have to act now and reverse the deterioration of the social situation in Europe. We therefore call on member states to take the necessary actions to address this and reflect this in their next National Reform Programmes.”

Read Social Platform's full evaluation of the 2013 European Semester and proposals from 2014 onwards, as sent to the European Commission prior to the publication of the AGS 2014.

2013-11-19