SPC annual review of social policies and reforms

The Social Protection Committee (SPC), an EU advisory policy committee for employment and social affairs, has published its annual review of the most recent social protection policies and reforms in the European Union in 2013-2014. It covers policies in the areas of social inclusion, poverty reduction and Roma inclusion; adequate and sustainable pensions; accessible and high-quality healthcare and long-term care.

Social protection for the youth

Amongst the different topics, the thematic focus of this year’s report is youth exclusion – one of the most serious challenges brought by the economic crisis which reached its peak in 2013 with 23.6% of young people unemployed in EU28 (according to Eurostat). A comparative analysis paints a comprehensive picture of what policies and initiatives Member States are implementing to prevent and address youth unemployment.

If initiatives such as the Youth Guarantee are to have a positive impact on youth unemployment, the question is how to ensure social protection systems are prepared to compensate for a potentially lengthy youth exclusion from the labour market and meet the specific needs of young people beyond providing individual assistance.

Key recommendations

The SPC report aims to feed into the Annual Growth Survey, thus influence the European Commission’s recommendations given to Member States later in the year in relation to their social priorities. Some of the key messages put forward include:

• future structural reforms should ensure that social protection systems are guided by clear social investment priorities while guaranteeing adequate protection in times of need;
• to overcome the effects of the crisis, social support for young people needs to include a wide range of services (e.g. strengthening access to education and training, supporting engagement in society);
• with an alarming increase in child poverty, Member States need to step up their efforts of investing in children to ensure investment in human capital from the early stages; the report argues for a preventative and integrated approach including, for example, policies that support the employment of parents or reduce in-work poverty;
• with health care systems undergoing systemic changes (due to challenges such as the demographic age, but also taking advantage of new technological developments), there is a need to ensure that health inequalities and inequalities in access to health care are addressed in the process;
• overall, there is a need for a more integrated approach and better coordinated economic, fiscal, employment and social policies.

Read the full report ‘Review of recent social policy reforms for a fair and competitive Europe’