On 3-4 March, the European Commission will be holding the European Employment and Social Rights Forum, where the first EU Anti-Poverty Strategy will feature at one of the sessions. The strategy represents an opportunity to accomplish something Europe has too often delayed: translate commitments into capabilities — actual, measurable capacity in each community to prevent hardship, respond early, and empower people to live with dignity. But if this approach is to work, it must be built around a simple truth: poverty is not just a lack of income; it is a lack of opportunities, stability, support, and power. Those factors meet within social services.

Across ESN’s work with public social services leaders across Europe, four expectations consistently emerge that should be non-negotiable pillars within the new strategy. It must be multidimensional, contain an updated European Social Services Quality Framework, involve serious investment in the workforce, and embed governance that listens to people with lived experience.

Treat poverty as multidimensional, and structure policy around people, not silos

Without fundamental and systemic policy and financial changes, Europe will thwart its own ambitions, no matter how widely its EU Anti-Poverty Strategy is sold. ESN’s position on the Commission’s consultation is clear: the strategy needs to take a multidimensional approach to poverty and bring together policy action across care, employment, income, health, housing, and community support.

That means the strategy should be presented in a way that local services can actually implement: integrated pathways, joint commissioning, shared outcomes, and accountability that rewards prevention and early intervention, not just crisis response.

Put a Social Services Quality Framework at the heart of delivery

Any European strategy is only as good as the services that people can access when they need support. This is why ESN has requested the strategy include an updated social services quality framework.

In late 2025, ESN published its proposal for a revised European Framework for Quality in Social Services, which was developed by a multi-annual working group and based on the changing landscape of quality assurance practice. The framework outlines six principles for services that the EU should expect: human rights-based, person-centred, outcomes-oriented, safe, community-based, and well-led.

These are not abstract values. They translate into quality standards with practical relevance and framed in ways that reflect the experiences of people using services and the responsibilities of providers. Therefore, we have advocated with members of the European Parliament to call on the European Commission to go beyond their 2010 Voluntary Quality Framework, which they did in the recently adopted report in the European Parliament. If Europe wants “access to quality services” to mean more than just a slogan, it needs to make this framework a flagship deliverable of the Anti-Poverty Strategy — linked to EU funding and monitoring, as well as the European Semester.

Invest in the social services workforce as an essential part of fighting poverty

Across Europe, social services are under pressure from rising demand driven by demographic change, cost-of-living pressures, and overlapping crises. ESN’s ongoing work related to workforce seems to address the recurring barriers that undermine effectiveness: poor working conditions, limited career progression, staff shortages, and the challenge of attracting younger workers. 

That is why ESN has urged the Commission to propose specific investments in the social services workforce within the EU Anti-Poverty Strategy. This needs to include:

• Workforce planning and skills strategies that match demand (including crisis preparedness and digital capability);
• Recognition and portability of qualifications, so Europe’s free movement supports—not complicates—recruitment and retention;
• Modern working conditions and supervision, because quality and safety depend on the wellbeing of staff and continuity of relationships. 

ESN has also argued for a coordinated, Europe-wide approach—a European Strategy on the Social Services Workforce—to address shared challenges systematically. The EU Anti-Poverty Strategy can be the political vehicle to make it happen.

Make person-centred support and lived experience a governance standard, not a footnote

If the strategy is serious about empowerment, it must be designed with people, not just for them.

ESN’s Response to the Public Consultation on the EU Anti-Poverty Strategy calls for a person-centred approach and involvement of people with lived experience. That principle must show up in governance: co-design requirements, meaningful participation budgets, feedback loops that affect service commissioning decisions, and outcome measures that reflect people’s priorities (safety, autonomy, belonging, stability), not just administrative outputs.

Use the European Social Services Index to anchor strategy in evidence and accountability

One reason European social policy debates stall is that we compare too little of what truly delivers support: legislation, financing, and coverage of social services.

In 2023, ESN launched the European Social Services Index (ESSI) to fill that gap, gathering national data and producing a yearly Cross-Country Analysis to inform the European Semester and EU recommendations to national governments. The Index has been acknowledged by the European Parliament as a powerful tool to support the provision of evidence in the framework of the European Semester. 

The EU Anti-Poverty Strategy can use this kind of evidence to:

• identify service gaps (e.g. long-term care, homelessness support, child protection, domestic violence services) and set EU-level expectations for coverage;
• align EU funding and Semester recommendations with clear benchmarks on coverage, quality, and workforce capacity. 

Commit to person-centred thematic action where poverty concentrates

Finally, the strategy must not take a one-size fits all approach. ESN’s proposals stress person-centred thematic priorities that public social services repeatedly see at the sharpest edge of poverty: child-centred support, integrated support for homelessness, integrated support for people furthest from the labour market, and a ‘care guarantee’ with particular attention to people with disabilities and older people with long-term needs. 

These priorities are not separate from poverty reduction—they are poverty reduction. They are where deprivation becomes preventable harm, and where timely services change people’s life pathways.

The test: can a frontline team deliver this strategy on a Monday morning?

Europe does not need another strategy that reads well in Brussels but fails at the point of delivery. The next EU Anti-Poverty Strategy should be judged by a practical test: does it give local social services the workforce, quality framework, funding alignment, and governance mandate to act early, act together, and act with people?

If the EU gets these foundations right—multidimensional action, quality standards, workforce investment, lived-experience governance, and ESSI-based accountability—then the EU Anti-Poverty Strategy can become what Europe’s social project has always promised: not charity, not crisis management, but a reliable system of support that makes inclusion real in every community.