Caritas, the Red Cross, the ONCE Foundation and the Fundación Secretariado Gitano are holding high-level meetings in Brussels to defend the future of the ESF [editar]

Representatives of these four organisations, which have been implementing European Social Fund social projects in Spain for over 25 years, travelled to Brussels on 21 and 22 April 2026 to defend the future of the ESF in the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework in response to a proposal from the European Commission that jeopardises its continuation as we know it today.

High-level meetings at the European Parliament and the European Commission.

We held high-level meetings with Spanish MEPs from the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) Group, including Iratxe García – chair of the European group – Idoia Mendía, Alicia Homs and Sandra Gómez; from the European People’s Party (EPP) Group, including Rosa Estarás, Isabel Benjumea, Maravillas Abadía and Esther Herranz; from The Left group, such as Estrella Galán (Sumar) and Vicent Marzá from the Greens/EFA. We also met with key rapporteurs from the European Parliament’s Committee on Employment: David Casa from the EPP, Marit Maij from the S&D, and co-rapporteur Villy Søvndal from the Greens. We also had the opportunity to meet with the Executive Vice-President and European Commissioner responsible for the ESF, Roxana Mînzatu, as well as representatives from the Spanish Permanent Representation.

The overall stance of all the political groups we met with was very positive regarding the need to safeguard a strong, autonomous and distinct ESF in the next multiannual financial framework. They therefore support the proposal by Spanish ESF-operating NGOs to amend and improve the European Commission’s current proposal, which dilutes the ESF’s specific identity within the National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRP) and its objectives for the social inclusion of the most vulnerable people, including Roma. 

The Parliament will shortly demonstrate its unanimous position with the adoption of the Interim Report just presented by the Committee on Budgets on 15 April 2026, which calls for a minimum of €124.19 billion for the future ESF, multi-level governance and greater civil society participation. Many negotiations still lie ahead in the so-called trilogues involving the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of the EU.

At these meetings, our organisations have presented the work we have been doing for over 25 years in implementing the ESF at national level and achieving significant impacts on the most vulnerable groups: Roma, migrants, people with disabilities and those living in poverty. We have shared the key findings from our recent impact assessment (2016–2023), which we recently presented to the Economic and Social Council in Madrid, highlighting the following results: 1.3 million people supported, nearly 500,000 placed in employment, 430,000 trained, and a return of €3 for every euro invested. The evaluation demonstrates the clear added value that our ESF programmes have achieved, and we therefore call for the preservation of an independent ESF in the future, with a binding budget and a minimum of 25% earmarked for social inclusion, which must be ring-fenced for initiatives targeting the most vulnerable people.

We will continue to pursue this advocacy at European level in the coming months, which will be crucial for laying the foundations of the future multiannual financial framework for the period 2027–2034, the main European financial instrument for social cohesion and for maintaining the social Europe that we believe must be preserved.