The European Commission this week unveiled an “ambitious social plan” to eradicate poverty and boost social and economic inclusion.
The package, presented on Wednesday (6 May), includes the first-ever EU anti-poverty strategy, which aims to help hit the ambitious target set back in 2021 in the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan: to eradicate poverty in the bloc by 2050.
Does it have teeth?
The new strategy sets out to bring together a range of existing initiatives – including ones related to employment, effective access to public services and adequate income support – into a single framework. The idea is that this will guide member states in their efforts to achieve the first stage of the bloc’s poverty-reduction goal: 15 million fewer Europeans living in poverty by 2030.
Thomas Waitz, a Green MEP from Austria, commends the strategy on the level of analysis it contains. It clearly recognises, he says, the various factors that lead to poverty and paints a thorough picture of the links to housing costs, the cost of living, as well as to various forms of discrimination, including on the grounds of disability. Yet, he goes on, it simply has no teeth. His comments are shared by Agora.
Thomas Waitz, Member of the European Parliament – Greens-EFA, Austria (in German):
“The weakness of this strategy, however, lies in the fact that it offers few, if any, concrete solutions, since most of the necessary measures in this regard are decided at the national level – and in some cases, as is the case in Austria, at the state level. Consequently, the European Commission’s power to act is very limited. This is evident in the proposal to award a prize for the best poverty-reduction efforts. While this is a nice symbolic gesture, it doesn’t fundamentally change many people’s situation of poverty.”
Yes, agree our colleagues at RTBF: without a meaningful budget, and without strict constraints on member states, is this strategy not merely a list of recommendations? What difference does it really make? They put this question to French MEP Marie Toussaint, co-chair of the European Parliament’s Intergroup on the Fight against Poverty.
The Green member acknowledges that we are facing a cut in social spending in the EU’s next seven-year budget of – she estimates – around 17 per cent. So, she says, there is a fundamental contradiction between the objectives set out in this strategy and the budget that accompanies it. But this is not to say that the strategy is without merit.
Marie Toussaint, Member of the European Parliament – Greens-EFA, France (in French):
“Socioeconomic discrimination exists. We hear constant stigmatisation of the unemployed, who are said to be responsible for their own situation, and of homeless people, who are said to be responsible for their own situation… This strategy puts a stop to this rhetoric, […] a narrative largely promoted by the far right that is spreading across the political spectrum. [It also] calls for all legislative instruments to be analysed for their impact on the poorest. This is what the Commission calls ‘poverty-proofing’, which I consider a form of social veto. It prevents laws from exacerbating inequalities.”
This ‘poverty proofing’ is a key component of the comprehensive approach the Commission is pushing in its strategy. But what exactly is it?
Marie Toussaint, Member of the European Parliament – Greens-EFA, France (in French):
“For every policy that is implemented, whatever the area, we carry out impact assessments to see if it worsens the living conditions of those who are already struggling day to day; already unable to make ends meet. If it does make things worse, then we do not adopt it.”
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Representatives of various European bodies have urged the Commission to move beyond recommendations towards formal directives in a number of areas, including minimum income. Alexander Friedrich, head of the Brussels office of a major Austrian social welfare organisation, makes the case for this in an interview with Agora.
Alexander Friedrich, Head of the Brussels Branch of Volkshilfe (in German):
“Our demand and our hope is that we should not limit ourselves to a minimum wage directive, but there should also be a directive on minimum income and basic social security in the European Union. We want to ensure that people who are not in employment – including children, people with disabilities, pensioners, or anyone who is currently out of work – also receive a decent minimum income.”
Support for anti-poverty measures is not, though, limited to those on the left of the political spectrum. No, tackling poverty is a no-brainer from an economic perspective, argues Romanian MEP Claudiu Târziu, a member of the conservative ECR group. Radio România reports.
Claudiu Târziu, Member of the European Parliament – ECR, Romania (in Romanian):
“Poverty is one of the costliest scourges affecting modern society. The lack of minimum conditions for a decent life causes disease, illiteracy, marginalisation and crime everywhere. The fight against poverty does not require a budgetary burden; rather, it is one of the most profitable investments we can make. Every euro invested today in infrastructure, accessible healthcare, education and training programmes will reduce tomorrow’s budgets related to health, public order or social assistance. We are basically talking about an intelligent and extremely profitable reallocation of public funds. This Parliament must have the courage and decency to combat poverty as decisively as when it decided to reduce pollution in the European Union. It is only a matter of will to launch the largest investment programme in history to revitalise the EU’s disadvantaged areas.”
Education is the main tool to combat poverty in EU countries, according to Romanian socialist Victor Negrescu. During this week’s plenary session in Strasbourg, the Parliament vice-president called for 20 per cent of the bloc’s next multiannual budget to be allocated to education – a high-reach objective, to say the least.
Victor Negrescu, Vice-President of the European Parliament – S&D, Romania (in Romanian):
“Education is the main tool through which we fight poverty, but also through which we can increase our competitiveness. Education is not supported with fine words, but with adequate budgets and policies. That is why I have submitted an amendment co-signed by MEPs from the Education Intergroup, through which we request that 20 per cent of the future multiannual budget of the European Union go to education and skills training.”
Cracking the housing crisis
The Commission’s new plan also contains a proposed Council recommendation on fighting housing exclusion, plus communications on breaking the cycle of child poverty and reinforcing the rights of persons with disabilities.
So, let’s turn our attention to housing. Access to housing is closely intertwined with the issue of poverty, and is in fact a fundamental right – yet Europeans face increasing obstacles to accessing proper housing, including surging rental prices.
Just the day before the Commission presented its new social plan, it co-hosted a high-level event on the EU housing crisis with the European Parliament in Brussels.
Key outcomes of the event centred on financing, faster construction and stricter regulation of short-term rentals, yet some attending experts warned that the Commission’s plan could actually worsen the crisis by failing to provide for long-term structural change.
Irene Tinagli, chair of the European Parliament’s Special Committee on the Housing Crisis, led a delegation of MEPs to Portugal a month ago to assess the scale of that country’s housing crisis. In an interview with Renascença, the Italian S&D member notes that her delegation has met many people, in many member states, whose primary concern in life is keeping a roof over their heads. Indeed, according to Commission figures, a lack of affordable housing is seen as an urgent problem by 40 per cent of citizens, and one million Europeans are actually homeless.
Tinagli adds that this widespread sense of anxiety, combined with a dearth of decent, affordable housing, is fuelling populist movements across the bloc and argues that the next multiannual financial framework must include earmarked funding to combat the problem.
Irene Tinagli, Member of the European Parliament – S&D, Italy (in English):
“We need funds for housing to support and continue what has been started with the Recovery Fund. We can’t just let it finish with projects that are still being constructed. So we need to make sure that this effort continues, and that national governments and local governments can continue investing in housing. At the same time, the national governments need to think that it’s also their own responsibility to continue investing because they cannot expect everything only to come from Brussels. So, it’s a [case of] cooperation […] and responsibility.”
Tinagli points out that there are a number of potential solutions, some of which are already in the pipeline.
Irene Tinagli, Member of the European Parliament – S&D, Italy (in English):
“The first line of defence is public and social housing. And in certain countries, and Portugal is one of them, this is really very, very low and it’s unable to address the needs, the basic needs. But then we also are observing the problem in the middle/middle-low income class. And this can be addressed with cooperation between public and private investors. But the type of private investors that are not speculative. So they seek, of course, some form of return on their costs, but they also are interested in having a social impact here. For example, we can also help by providing guarantees so that they can lower their risk and have an investment that has lower returns but lower risk and a longer perspective. In this respect, the European Investment Bank is also launching a platform to help private investments be directed towards affordable housing.”
Tinagli also spoke to our colleagues at Radio 24 in Milan this week specifically about her own country’s long-awaited housing plan, worth some 10 billion euros over 10 years, which finally appears to be going somewhere.
She praises the government’s intention to bring back into use 60,000 vacant social housing units. That said, she cautions that the Italian plan still places too much emphasis on incentives for house buyers, and also seems to raise the possibility of disposing of social housing, which, as she has just told us, she considers the only real buffer against the crisis.
The Commission’s proposed Council recommendation on fighting housing exclusion does, though, promote more social and affordable housing. It ties into the European Affordable Housing Plan, put forward by the Brussels executive in December.
Returning to the anti-poverty strategy, the Commission stresses the need for national, regional and local governments to join forces with businesses and civil society. One concrete way it intends to support this is by establishing a so-called ‘coalition against poverty’ later this year.
