With an envelope of €100 billion for the European Social Fund+ (ESF+) integrated into the new regional and national partnership plans, the European Commission wants to place greater emphasis, between 2028 and 2034, on support for reintegration into employment, skills acquisition, vocational retraining measures and the fight against poverty, particularly child poverty.
National and regional partnership plans should promote social inclusion, boost rural areas, support strong social safety nets and foster intergenerational fairness.
But the 2028-2034 programme will now have to meet “a minimum level of ambition”, explained Commission Vice-President Roxana Mînzatu on Wednesday 16 July.
For the first time, a spending target has been introduced: 14% of the national allocations will finance reforms and investments to enhance skills, fight poverty, promote social inclusion and boost rural areas.
A new methodology will make it possible to determine the degree of ambition of the reforms or measures taken by the Member States, whether in terms of labour market activation reforms, policies to combat child poverty or fair access to public services.
The flexibility allowed by the new plans will also give Member States and regions the opportunity to spend more than is allocated to ESF+. And “I hope, of course, that they will go further than this target level” of 14%, added the European Commissioner.
She also welcomed the fact that the social impact of European funds would be a criterion applicable to the entire MFF.
At a time when the EU is losing a million workers a year, the Commission wants to place greater emphasis on skills acquisition, help prolong careers and bring back people who have been out of the labour market for a long time.
The new €410 billion Competitiveness Fund (see EUROPE 13682/6), which will also provide support for retraining and further training measures, will also be used to achieve these objectives. This fund will also finance the European Skills Guarantee for workers.
The crisis mechanism will make it possible as well to intervene in crisis situations on the labour market, such as during the Covid-19 pandemic, with the possibility of intervention along the lines of the ‘SURE’ mechanism, which supported national partial unemployment schemes. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)