On Thursday 22 January in Strasbourg, MEPs urged the European Commission and Executive Vice-President for Social Rights and Skills, Quality Jobs and Preparedness Roxana Mînzatu to present ambitious initiatives to ensure the continuity of the pillar of social rights action plan, which in March 2021 led European leaders to set three major objectives to be achieved by 2030 on employment, training and reducing poverty, particularly child poverty.
While the Commission is planning legislative initiatives in 2026 on ‘Quality Jobs’ and fair labour mobility, they also called for credible European funding for employment and social policies through a strengthened European Social Fund (ESF) within the next Multiannual Financial Framework, as requested in particular by Denis Radtke (EPP, German).
The EPP member also called on the Commission to provide data to measure social progress, citing as an example the European Child Guarantee, “for which we don’t know how much has been spent so far or how”.
For Estelle Ceulemans (S&D, Belgian), the future action plan should “be ambitious and aim for quality jobs and a multi-dimensional approach”, also covering access to education and ambitious resources for the ESF and ‘Youth Guarantee’, at the risk of turning the plan into an “empty box”.
The ECR group also argued for financial support for companies to boost training, while the PfE group called on the EU to do nothing and not get involved in matters that are not its responsibility.
Responding to an oral question tabled by Li Andersson (The Left, Finnish) on the future plan’s level of ambition (see EUROPE 13789/15), the vice-president indicated that the results of the 2021 action plan, which organised and prepared the European pillar of social rights, itself adopted in 2017, would be presented “in July”.
“The 2021 action plan shows results. Progress has been recorded. However, we need to do more. We need to do better and we need to be faster in some areas”, said the vice-president, while targets for adult education and poverty have not been achieved.
“We are currently analysing the results and finalising this review. While the action plan’s impacts on the ground are unfolding, the feedback received confirms the importance and relevance of this pillar”.
In any case, in 2026 “we will adopt the first ever EU Anti-Poverty Strategy, a Council recommendation on fighting housing exclusion and a strengthened European Child Guarantee”, she also pointed out.
“The Anti-Poverty Strategy will have a strong person-centred, life cycle and preventive approach, also [taking into account] the increased cost of living”.
The review of the 2021 action plan will allow “future actions to be defined on the basis of a thorough analysis of implementation, [taking into account] the EU’s new needs that have been identified. These new actions will complement and strengthen ongoing and planned initiatives”, she added. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)