The Europe 2020 blueprint ignores the importance of ensuring social protection in exit strategies, despite the EU executive and member states calling for exactly that in a joint report published last week, European social NGOs have claimed.
European social affairs and employment ministers are meeting in Brussels today (8 March) to discuss the Europe 2020 strategy, which the Commission hopes will form the backbone of sustainable growth in Europe for the 2010-2020 period.
They will also adopt the 'Joint Report on Social Protection and Social Inclusion' (see 'Background'), which "focuses on drawing lessons from Europe's response to the crisis".
The joint report argues that the EU's social tools – "welfare systems and specific short-term policies" – have been vital in saving Europe from "the worst effects" of the global recession.
"Policy intervention and European welfare systems proved instrumental in containing the economic and social impact of the crisis," it argues.
Indeed, Commission officials told EurActiv that in their opinion, the report in many ways "validates the idea of EU social cohesion," and the key message in the short-term is that EU exit strategies from the crisis will prove ineffective without a social dimension, they said.
The report's timing should mean it underpins many of the policy objectives of the Europe 2020 stategy, which was launched in Brussels last week, they claimed (EurActiv 03/03/10) .
Commission double-speak on exit strategies?
However, a representative of the Platform of European Social NGOs (Social Platform) told EurActiv that the Commission is getting its wires crossed in its social claims.
"The Commission is contradicting itself," the expert said, arguing that "on the one hand, the joint report clearly states that you can't have exit strategies without clear guidelines for social protection systems, while on the other hand, the Commission's EU 2020 strategy has no mention of any social aspects built into the sections dealing with 'exit strategies'".
The important role of social welfare systems in easing Europe out of the crisis, so heavily emphasised in the joint report, is largely lacking in Europe 2020, the analyst claimed, with the Commission instead outlining that member states will have to make sharp social spending cuts in order to restore growth.
The devil is in the detail
The expert admitted that the Commission still has time to develop these missing ideas and may have omitted them from the Europe 2020 paper for reasons of space. "You can't fit everything into a 30-page proposal," the NGO representative said.
"The devil is in the detail," the analyst argued, explaining that the Commission's guidelines for how member states implement the 2020 recommendations will be fleshed out between now and next June.
However, early indications show that the EU executive has ignored the joint report's findings in writing up the strategy, and Commission President José Manuel Barroso and his team will have to resolve these discrepancies if they want a genuinely strong social pillar in their flagship strategy, the activist concluded.
