The European Parliament wants an EU directive on adequate minimum incomes in the EU and made this clear by adopting a resolution on the subject on Wednesday 15 March by 336 votes to 174 with 121 abstentions.
MEPs also call on the Member States, who adopted the EU Council Recommendation on Adequate Minimum Income and Active Inclusion (see EUROPE 13073/20) at the end of 2022, to regularly assess and readjust the level of minimum incomes, which do not exist in all Member States.
To date, only two EU countries offer minimum incomes that are high enough to prevent their beneficiaries from falling into poverty, which should be precisely the aim of this instrument.
The subject had been debated the day before in plenary, in the presence of the European Commissioner for Social Affairs, Nicolas Schmit. With one in five people in the EU now at risk of poverty and social exclusion, and with inflation and energy costs making the situation even worse, MEPs stressed the need for the Commission and Member States to ensure that all those entitled to these basic social benefits, such as the homeless, have access to them, including by removing administrative barriers and conditions.
No directive in sight
Mr Schmit agreed with most of the MEPs’ messages, saying that minimum incomes should accompany the return to the labour market. And for those in employment, the minimum income “must be a lever to complement” the wage.
By 2030, all Member States should also have achieved this level of minimum income adequacy, including taking into account the cost of living. The recommendation thus creates a “permanent call” to the EU27 to achieve this.
But the Commissioner could not give the elected representatives any good news about the possibility of a directive on the subject. “My first idea, when we dealt with it, was indeed to consider a directive. Unfortunately, the Treaty does not give us much room and is not written to intervene in the social policies of the Member States”, he explained.
However, the most “essential” issue remains “the political will of the Member States and at EU level to say that poverty is a scandal and that we want to tackle this problem”, he added.
Link to the text: https://aeur.eu/f/5ti (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)