Brussels, 27/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - The EU Member States will present next 1 June their first national actin plans on social inclusion (NAPincl), foreseen by the Lisbon and Nice Summits. These plans will cover the period from July 2001 to July 2003, period in which the European Commission will examine and set out a series of indicators to verify the progress achieved. The follow-up of these NAP will be done in the framework of the EC action plan to fight against social exclusions, which is presently the object of an EP/Council conciliation procedure. Thus entering into a dynamic process of drafting indicators in the fight against poverty in the NAP, whose results will be integrated into the conclusions of the Laeken Summit, notes Olivier Gerard, from ATD Quart-Monde.
As the preparation of these NAP constitutes a considerable operation for the Member States, the Commission suggested to each of them to organise bilateral seminars on information and mobilisation on social exclusion, which began on 7 February in Austria and on 14 February in Belgium. The next will take place on 1 March in Spain, 2 March ion Portugal, 7 March in Italy, 15 March in Sweden, 21 March in Greece, 23 March in Luxembourg and 30 March in France. The Commission is represented either by its Director General for Employment, Odile Quintin, or by its Director in the same Directorate General Karl-Johan Lonnroth.
Let us recall that, during the Congress of the European Movement in May 1998 in The Hague, the President of ATD Quart-Monde Alwine de Vos had already drawn attention to the need to have a serious debate in the Council of Ministers so as to institute the means to put an end to the persistence of misery and asked: Why has no EU Summit ever clearly confronted this scourge? It is necessary to finally find the truth, break for once and for all the silence, by organising as soon as possible a summit on great poverty, which dares to bear the name".
By the end of July the Commission will publish an initial draft report on the NAP that will be discussed during a first series of bilateral meetings, which will take place in Brussels in the last week of August and in the first half of September. The aim is to have a solid technical base for a programme to fight against social exclusion, whose adoption by the Commission is scheduled for 3 October and which will be submitted to the Employment and Social Affairs Council next 8 October. This will leave Member States sufficient time for them to take a stance, in view of the adoption of a joint Commission-Council report on the NAP during the Social Council on 3 December, joint report that will be examined by the Laeken Summit on 14 and 15 December.