Fundación Secretariado Gitano

European Commission presents European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan. [editar]

• International

Long-time awaited, the European Social Pillar Action Plan, in which consulting process Fundación Secretariado Gitano has participated, was presented last March 4^th by the European Commission establishing three targets for 2030:

• At least 78% of people aged 20 to 64 should be in employment
• At least 60% of all adults should participate in training every year
• The number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion should be reduced by at least 15 million (decreased from the initial estimated 20 million target).

The European Commission has justified those targets as “ambitious but realistic”, considering the post COVID scenario. Funding those measures is recommended to Member States by using Cohesion Funds such as ESF+ as the main funding instrument for the European Pillar of Social Rights, complemented with the RRF extraordinary funds. Recovery and Resilience Plans to be submitted by Member States should include measures and programming to reach Action Plan Targets.

 

Therefore the EPSR Action Plan builds on employment creation, considering the transition towards a green economy and digitalization model; training, upskilling and reskilling adults and poverty and social exclusion reduction.

In a mid-long term period, the Action Plan foresees enhancing a competitive economy in  the EU, through Member States commitment with specific measures such as:

• reducing youth unemployment that reached 17.8% in 2020 through training and employment alternatives
• increasing upper secondary education participation and reducing early school drop
• reducing gender gap
• increasing formal early childhood education and care
• reducing the NEETs rate
• fostering non discrimination in employment access for vulnerable communities such as Roma    

• reducing child poverty through the Child Guarantee development
• increasing social dialogue with social organizations and stakeholders participation

 

In order to monitor the implementation of these measures, new indicators have been included in the Social Scoreboard, such as Participation in learning experiences, child poverty rate or housing cost overburden. As secondary indicators, social expenditure through GDP percentage, unemployment benefits or children in formal child care are also included.

Regarding non-discrimination specific measures, the European Commission commits to deliver reports on the Equality Employment Directive and Race Equality Directive and recommends Member States to:

• advance the proposal for an Equal Treatment Directive
• adopt the commitments on Equality, Inclusion and Participation of Roma population
• assign funds from both RRF and CF (mainly ESF+ and ERDF) to reach the Action Plan recommendations, by assigning 25% of ESF+ to poverty reduction measures and at least 12.5% to reduce NEET’s rate.

 The Action Plan requires firm and active commitment from Member States, especially to harmonize employment measures including the most vulnerable populations and reducing poverty and social inclusion risk. Coordination with National Strategy for Roma Population will be essential to reach measurable advances and deliver the European Framework for Roma Equality commitments.

 

 

 

 

 

← BACK TO MAIN ‘NEWS’ PAGE