SOLIDAR Social Progress Watch Initiative:

For a More Social Europe

Today, at an event in the European Parliament with MEPs Evelyne Gebhardt (S&D, Germany), Alejandro Cercas (S&D, Spain), and Josef Weidenholzer (S&D, Austria – SOLIDAR President), and SOLIDAR member Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO), SOLIDAR launched the Social Progress Watch Initiative, a monitoring tool to evaluate progress made towards a more social and cohesive Europe within the framework of the European Semester.

The crisis has led to 120 million people living in or at risk of poverty in Europe, to a rise in unemployment to 24 million people and to an equal number of working poor no longer able to live on the income they earn. The immediate response of the EU was to focus on fiscal and financial consolidation through austerity plans which resulted in even more inequality for poor and vulnerable groups. Now it is time for a policy change.

The tool – developed with SOLIDAR members and partners – will provide an analysis of Member States’ performances in promoting quality employment, active inclusion, social cohesion, non-formal and informal learning, equality and solidarity and will offer concrete recommendations to the European Institutions and Member States involved in the European Semester on how to spur social consolidation in the European Union.

The monitoring tool is based on six benchmarks corresponding to the policy priorities needed – in our view – to make concrete steps towards realising social progress in the EU:

• Fighting unemployment (and in particular youth unemployment) through the promotion of inclusive and quality employment as well as fair mobility.
• Improving access to healthcare and quality social services for all as well as quality employment in the healthcare and social sector.
• Promoting access and participation in lifelong learning, with a particular focus on non-formal and informal learning.
• Promoting, reinforcing and support social economy
• Strengthening active citizenship and volunteering for social cohesion
• Fighting discrimination and social exclusion

SOLIDAR calls upon civil society organisations and progressive forces to join our initiative and work together for a stronger social Europe and to promote the necessary policy change needed to establish social consolidation in the EU.

Read more about SOLIDAR’s recommendations to strengthen the social dimension of the European Semester 2014 and to promote access and participation in lifelong learning.

Read more about SOLIDAR Social Progress Watch Initiative on our website and download the country feedback reports.

SOLIDAR is a European network of 60 NGOs working to advance social justice in Europe and worldwide. SOLIDAR voices the concerns of its member organisations to the EU and international institutions across the policy sectors social affairs, international cooperation and lifelong learning. For more info www.solidar.org