Drawing on our members’ expertise, the European Social Network (ESN) responds to the European Commission’s mid-term review of the Europe 2020 Strategy, highlighting how to achieve a more social and more inclusive EU 2020.
Key facts about the Europe 2020 Strategy
The Europe 2020 Strategy was launched in March 2010 as the EU's strategy for promoting smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. The Strategy is built around five headline targets in the areas of employment, research and development, climate and energy, education and the fight against poverty and social exclusion.
The Strategy is implemented and monitored in the context of the European Semester, the yearly cycle of coordination of economic and budgetary policies at EU level, which involves the preparation of National Reform Programmes (NRPs) by the Member States and Country-Specific Recommendations (CSRs) by the European Commission.
The mid-term review process
In March 2014, the European Commission proposed and national governments agreed to review the Europe 2020 Strategy. The European Commission adopted the Communication Taking stock of the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and launched a public consultation seeking the stakeholders’ views on the lessons learned and the elements to be taken into account in the further development of the Europe 2020 Strategy.
Key messages from ESN members
ESN brought together directors and senior professionals working in social services across Europe to discuss the Commission’s consultation during a meeting in September. Their input is the basis of our response to the consultation (read the summary or contact us for the full response).
Drawing on our members’ expertise, the response highlights the involvement of stakeholders from local public social services as one of the weakest areas, which may have also impacted on the implementation of the Strategy.
There is also the need to reinforce the implementation by finding a stronger link between policies, emphasising the complementarity of the targets and developing input and intermediate outcome indicators in order to measure performance.
Looking ahead, it will be key to ensure a stronger social dimension to the Strategy; this should be reinforced by social impact assessments, a bottom-up perspective, as well as a coordinated approach (which links resources and takes account of a more sophisticated set of social policy indicators).