Brussels, 05/07/2000 (Agence Europe) - To provide the suitable follow-up to the Lisbon Summit, the Union has to engaged itself, in the field of the fight against poverty and social exclusion, in a process similar to the "Luxembourg Process", with quantified goals, guidelines, national plans and a rigorous method for monitoring commitments: this is the conclusion of a recent meeting, in Paris, between Martine Aubry, French Minister of Employment and Solidarity and President of the Employment and Social Policy Council, and a delegation from the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN), led by its President, Sintan Farrell and Director Francoise Wilkinson.
The "appropriate goals" to pursue should be: - actual access for all to fundamental rights (resources, professional inclusion, health, housing, education-training); - the coordination of policies, account being taken of the "exclusion" dimension in public policies; - galvanization of the different partners and society as a whole. As for the direct commitments to be made by the EU and the European Commission, EAPN states: a) increasing the means allocated to the Commission's services concerned so as to effectively back the open method of coordination; b) set up a European steering group to develop, implement and evaluate the European strategy in the fight against social exclusion; c) set up a European Monitoring Centre for the phenomena of poverty and social exclusion, that would work with the regional and national monitoring centres set up in Member States, and in partnership with the NGOs concerned; d) organise the periodic assessment of the impact of all Community policies and programmes in relation to the fight against poverty and social exclusion; e) introduce the demand that work be carried out in partnership with associations, including those in which people in the situation of exclusion express themselves, in the programmes funded by the Structural Funds; f) in the medium term, adopt a directive on the fight against poverty and social exclusion aimed at access for all to fundamental rights, resting on the dynamic created by the open coordinating method; g) integrate the Charter of Fundamental rights in the Treaty, comprising all civil, cultural, economic and social rights.
At the invitation of Martine Aubry, EAPN will present its proposals in Paris on 8 July, at the informal meeting of the Employment and Social Policy Council.