Editorial by Conny Reuter, SOLIDAR Secretary General

Is it urgent to wait?

30 January 2015

Rumours regularly circulate around the European Institutions, but this week we had confirmation from different sources: the Commission has decided that the mid-term review of the Europe2020 strategy will be postponed until either the end of this year or the beginning of 2016. It is a decision that is hard to understand, especially as no official justification has been provided at this stage.

Building on the former Lisbon-Strategy, five years ago the Barroso-Commission presented Europe2020 as ‘THE’ European Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, SOLIDAR together with many other social NGOs finally welcomed the strategy because of its social dimension and the integration of a social headline target to reduce the number of people at risk of poverty by 20 million by 2020.

Last year institutions, trade unions and civil society were mobilised to contribute to a mid-term review process which should have been concluded by now. We accepted that Europe2020, in spite of many weaknesses and in spite its focus on growth, would replace the former social agenda. Nevertheless we all felt bound to state that in spite of many efforts at EU and even national level, the headline targets were not achieved, except the climate targets, as a result of the economic recession.

If our contributions are included in the reflection process, nobody will complain about the loss of pace so far. As one of the aims of this new Commission is to improve law making, we hope that the postponement will not serve to dilute the ambition of Europe2020 or to reduce the scope: smart, sustainable and inclusive! A reduction of the scope to only job creation at any price would deny the findings of the ESDE 2014 report presented this week. This report has again given evidence that the political remedy of austerity instead of investment has led to a dual system in Europe: those Member States who have benefitted from the crisis and those who suffered from a fall in GNP, jobs and investment capacity. The report shows that investing in social protection, education and training, wages and social dialogue pays off, much more than the tradeoffs like cuts in social expenditure to balance the budget for the sake of the so called “sound public finances”.

Social and civil dialogue had and will help to ensure better implementation of the strategy, but the headline cannot be the famous “structural reforms”. The ESDE report gave evidence that where such reforms were explicitly defined in the National Reform Programmes and the Country Specific Recommendations, they had a disastrous impact on the social safety net, increased the risk of poverty, led to more inequality within and between the Member States. What kind of Europe do we want? One that aims for common high social and environmental standards, one that is smart, sustainable and inclusive! The social urgency does not scope with postponing Europe2020 review!

Together for social Europe! With a reviewed ambitious and overarching Europe2020 strategy!

Together for Social Europe

For a Democratic Europe – Final report of the ‘Real Civil Society Democracy in Europe’ project

27 January 2015

The final report of the Europe for Citizens project ‘Real Civil Society Democracy in Europe’ is now available here. This project was led by SOLIDAR Danish member Forum for International Cooperation (FIC) and project partners included SOLIDAR, CSV (UK), La ligue de l’Enseignement (France), CGIL (Italy) and IDEAS (Ireland). As illustrated in the report, the objective of this project was to raise awareness in the public and political systems at national and European level about the value of an organised and systematic participatory model for involving civil societ y organisations in European policy making processes.

The report also includes specific recommendations developed by the project partners on how to make the consultation more participatory and how to strengthen dialogue at Member State and EU level:

• EU Institutions and Member States shall include CSOs as equal partners in the review and design of the consultation process.
• Member States and EU Institutions shall pursue policies that generate sustainable and inclusive growth, and social investment, which ensure that CSOs have the capacity to engage in consultation, especially in times of austerity.
• CSOs and European networks of CSOs shall better coordinate their policies at the local, regional, national and European level as well as commit to internal democracy
• A new umbrella platform for civil dialogue between EU institutions and civil society shall be set up.

SOLIDAR has been highly involved in the project activities and contributed to the final recommendations in line with our overall objective of restoring trust and credibility in the capacity of democracy to find a means of tackling the most urgent social needs and unemployment within the EU. In particular SOLIDAR has been very active in supporting the implementation of the last recommendations mentioned above by contributing to the creation of the platform Civil Society Europe, a joint platform for facilitating interaction and exchange between the EU institutions and civil society organisations. We will continue to work towards establishing Civil Society Europe as a permanent coordinating body to represent organised civil society organisations on the European level.
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ESDE Review 2014 – Structural reforms not at the cost of social cohesion and inclusive societies!

29 January 2015

The annual ‘Employment and Social Developments in Europe’ report, published on 15 January by the European Commission, had little new to say this year, and no good news. The picture in Europe remains bleak.

The report highlights persistent structural challenges in the EU such as rising unemployment, increasing numbers of young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs), a prominent gender gap and undeclared work in the labour market, increasing poverty and social exclusion in two thirds of the countries, especially for the working age population and children, as well as growing divergences between countries in the EMU. These trends are also confirmed by the first findings of the analysis we conducted together with our members and partners in the framework of the SOLIDAR Social Progress Watch Initiative.
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Don’t touch the EU 2020 strategy!

Building Learning Societies

Lifelong learning to advance social developments

30 January 2015

The European Union has been facing one of the biggest economic recessions in its history over the last few years, and it has had a severe economic and social impact on the Member States, as well as on the lives of millions of Europeans who have been directly affected by the austerity policies. Now, as various measures are being taken towards recovery with the economic and social targets set as a priority alongside the headline Europe 2020 goals, SOLIDAR calls on the EU to work towards strengthening the Social Acquis and increasing social cohesion by adopting long-term policies oriented towards social investments.
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Organising International Solidarity

SOLIDAR supports the ECESR amendment to the Protest Act!

30 January 2015

The fourth anniversary of Egypt’s 25 January revolution has been marked by the terrible deaths of 20 peaceful protestors, while at least 49 people have been killed in clashes in Egypt.

SOLIDAR heavily condemns the recent events in Egypt and strongly insists upon the principle that the right to assemble and organise is a precondition for the defence of collective rights and remains at the core of any functioning democratic system.

In this context of impunity and the relentless crack down on civil organisations and peaceful activists, SOLIDAR is seriously concerned about the restrictive environment in which the up-coming elections will take place in Egypt, and calls for the Egyptian government to halt its unlawful clampdown on civil society and to immediately release those who have been detained under the Protest Act.
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