News

Social Platform's working group on Services of General Interest met for the second time this year. The main points that were highlighted included:

• On health systems as social investment: Sascha Marschang from the European Public Health Alliance highlighted that people would like to see more harmonisation in the health sector to have the same standards of health care and that health should be included in all policies, as recommended by WHO. Participants suggested that discussions on indicators beyond GDP should be looked at as a potential issue for the Platform
• Among the proposals for implementation of the Social Investment Package, Social Platform should stress again that member states have the primary responsibility of financing social services, even in times of crisis; participants also discussed the role of Social Impact Bonds
• On the Commission’s proposal for a Directive on basic bank accounts, participants agree with the positive overall assessment made by the Secretariat; we will work on identifying proposals to suggest specific measures to ensure access to a basic bank account for vulnerable groups
• We made progress towards a common understanding of some key elements on which social innovation should be based and proposals were made on the role of Social Platform to promote our understanding internally and externally
• We gave some updates on EU processes such as public procurement, state aid and the VAT directive
• Finally we discussed the draft Social Platform position paper on migration, in particular the section on access to basic services for migrants.

The next Working Group will take place on September 24.