European Commission, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Baptista, I., Guio, et al., Publications Office of the European Union, 2023.

On 14 June 2021, the EU Member States unanimously adopted Council Recommendation (EU) 2021/1004 establishing a “European Child Guarantee” (ECG). The objective of the ECG is to offset the impact of poverty on children and to prevent and combat their social exclusion. To this end, Member States are recommended to guarantee for “children in need” (defined as persons under 18 who are at risk of poverty or social exclusion): - effective and free access to four services: high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC), education and school-based activities, at least one healthy meal each school day and healthcare; - effective access to two services: healthy nutrition and adequate housing. At the request of the European Commission, and with a view to helping it set a baseline for monitoring the implementation of the ECG, the European Social Policy Analysis Network (ESPAN) has assessed the extent to which low-income children, i.e. children living in low-income households, have (effective/free) access to each of these services in the 27 EU Member States.

European Commission, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Mysíková, M., Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

This research note offers several complementary views that go beyond income poverty, using the most recent (2020) EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) data, a survey that provides official poverty statistics in the EU. The study first estimates subjective poverty (SP), which builds on income, but that describes income as it is reported by households themselves: the necessary minimum monthly amount they require to make ends meet and to cover regular necessary expenses. Therefore, the measurement of SP will reflect people’s own perceptions of their needs and actual situations, rather than an externally set ‘sufficient’ income threshold.

European Parliament, Directorate-General for External Policies of the Union, Oppel, A., McNabb, K., et al., Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

A workshop held on 19 March 2024 addressed issues affecting developing countries’ economic situation, and how it is shaped by policies and global governance. Key subjects include the International Monetary Fund and its policies, taxes and sovereign debt. Several experts addressed different facets of the subject to answer questions for the Committee on Development (DEVE): What aspects of the current system are being criticised? What are the proposals for change? And what can the EU and the European Parliament do to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?

European Economic and Social Committee, Campagnolo, L., De Cian, E., et al., European Economic and Social Committee, 2023.

This study investigates the major climate-related risks for households in the EU by quantifying the relationship between a set of selected climate-hazards metrics, households’ income by source, and sector-specific expenditures, capturing both the climate induced cost of impacts and adaptation measures. This analysis is complemented with the assessment of mitigation policy costs for households using a mixed modelling approach. The report highlights the distribution of climate change costs by type (income sourceand selected good/service expenditure-related) across regions (NUTS1 level) and socioeconomic characteristics of households (poor, medium income and rich households). In addition, the implications of climate change costs on income distribution and risk of poverty are analysed. The vulnerabilities of EU households highlighted in this study call for risk-specific policy measures at national and EU level and the transversality of climate change costs, especially in Southern EU, will require horizontal policy integration.

European Commission, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Fulvimari, A., Temursho, U., et al., Publications Office of the European Union, 2023.

The increase in energy prices since mid-2021, leading to a surge in inflation overall, has severely affected households in the EU, particularly low and middle-income households. The energy-driven inflation brought acute risks of exacerbating already existing inequalities and worsening energy and transport poverty. To our knowledge, this paper is the first to analyse the impacts of recently observed price changes on (expenditure-based) energy and transport poverty and along the income distribution at EU level. It does so by using household survey micro-data in a static simulation exercise. Our analysis shows that in the absence of behavioural responses and direct income support (expenditure-based) energy and transport poverty levels would have substantially increased across the EU because of energy price changes between August 2021 and January 2023, compared to the previous 18 months.

European Investment Bank, 2023.

The world is facing unprecedented challenges, with multiple crises undermining development progress, and even rolling back the achievements of recent years. The impacts of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are causing human suffering, have set back the struggle against extreme poverty, and are making it harder to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The negative effects of climate change are worsening, with many emerging and developing countries among the most vulnerable.

European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Shortall, R., Mengolini, A., Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

It has been estimated that in the EU, some form of energy poverty affects around 50 million people. EU policies strive to tackle the issue as part of a just and inclusive energy transition, however, due to the complex origins of energy poverty and understudied impacts of energy interventions it is not always clear whether certain approaches result in fairer outcomes overall for the citizens involved. Through a sociotechnical lens, we aim to assess energy justice outcomes of a purposeful selection of EU-funded projects. We complement existing project reporting with a qualitative analysis that explores the relationship between household energy interventions and energy justice impacts.

European Commission, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Ansaloni, V., Aprea, M., et al., Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

Alleviating poverty and social exclusion is the most important goal of minimum income (MI) schemes. These schemes provide cash benefits with the aim of guaranteeing a minimum amount of resources to those with insufficient means of subsistence, irrespective of their contribution history. Participation in an MI scheme is subject to a set of conditions on available income and assets. Aside from the issues related to work activation conditionalities, the poverty-reduction effect of a given MI scheme is related to various factors, e.g. a set of the eligibility conditions, the phenomenon of non-take-up (NTU), benefit adequacy and the interplay between MI and other social transfers.

European Commission, Directorate-General for International Partnerships. Publications Office of the European Union, 2023.

European Union and its Member States have collectively been the biggest global donor of official development assistance for a number of years. The EU’s commitment to providing sustainable support to partner countries is highlighted by its commitment to provide at least 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) as Official Development Assistance (ODA) by 2030. In 2022, the EU collectively provided €92.8 billion in ODA, equivalent of 0.59% of the EU GNI, accounting for 43% of the global ODA. The EU’s commitment to support sustainable development in partner countries is further evidenced with the launch of the Global Gateway initiative in December 2021.

European Commission, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Grammenos, S., Publications Office of the European Union, 2023.

The European Union (EU) is strongly committed to ensuring equal opportunities and removing economic and social barriers for people with disabilities, as demonstrated by, among other measures, the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD), the EU Disability Action Plan 2003- 2010 and the multi-annual European Disability Strategy 2010-2020.

European Commission, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Grammenos, S., Publications Office of the European Union, 2023.

European Disability Expertise (EDE) provides independent scientific support to the Commission’s Disability Policy Unit. The aim of Task 2.1 is to collect, provide and analyse independent data and information on the situation of persons with disabilities. In this report, disability is proxied by health-related limitations in the activities people have usually performed for at least the past six months (EU-SILC survey). The data refer to 2020 and occasionally to 2019 (notably for Germany and Italy). We have used the April 2022 release of EU-SILC 2020 microdata. We have to note that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the organisation and timing of the survey. Additional data covering 26 Member States (excluding Ireland) were provided by SHARE Corona survey 2. The data below stem from the EU-SILC survey unless otherwise indicated.

Eurostat, 2023.

This article is part of an online publication; it presents information for five European Neighbourhood Policy-East (ENP-East) countries, namely, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, compared with the European Union (EU). Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine also all became enlargement countries in 2022, the European Council giving the three a European perspective and granting Moldova and Ukraine candidate status on 23 June 2022.

Eurofound, Molinuevo, D., Consolini, M., Publications Office of the European Union, 2023.

Publication metadata
The European Child Guarantee was established in 2021 to ensure that children in need have access to a set of key services. This policy brief analyses trends and disparities in children’s access to early childhood education and care, education, healthcare, nutrition and housing. This is done using a convergence analysis, which tracks whether Member States are improving in respect of specific performance indicators and whether disparities between them are expanding or narrowing. The analysis, where possible, also looks at the differences between urban and rural areas and between children living in households with different levels of income and risk of social exclusion. The indicators chosen for analysis highlight the links between the Guarantee, the European Semester and the Social Scoreboard.

European Parliament, Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the Union, O’Sullivan, E., Benjaminsen, et al., Publications Office of the European Union, 2023.

This study, commissioned by the Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the Committee on Petitions (PETI), demonstrates the need to change systems that respond to homelessness as an issue of individual dysfunction and inadequacy, to systems that end homelessness. The residential instability felt by the majority of those who are homeless needs to be addressed through the provision of integrated housing, welfare, and health services. Public policy should aim to prevent homelessness in the first instance. For those who experience homelessness, the duration must be minimised by rapidly providing secure, affordable housing, in order to reduce further experiences of homelessness, decrease costly emergency accommodation, and alleviate trauma associated with homelessness.

European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Cassio, L., Efremova, G., Publications Office of the European Union, 2023.

The purpose of the report is to highlight a relatively new approach to social assistance for people in poverty, focusing on multidimensional coaching. The approach represents a paradigm shift in social assistance design, as it moves away from a top-down relationship between social worker and client towards a more collaborative relationship aimed at empowering the person in poverty. Coaching consists of a systematic, structured and intensive collaboration between the person in poverty and a mentor. It focuses on the many life dimensions that are affected by poverty, starting with an assessment of needs carried out by the person in poverty with the support of a mentor, rather than the other way round.

In: Sustainable development in the European Union – Monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context. Eurostat, 2023.

This article is a part of a set of statistical articles, which are based on the Eurostat publication ’Sustainable development in the European Union — Monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context — 2023 edition’. This report is the seventh edition of Eurostat’s series of monitoring reports on sustainable development, which provide a quantitative assessment of progress of the EU towards the SDGs in an EU context.

European Commission, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Publications Office of the European Union, 2023

The main objective of the present report is to deliver on the mandate of the Committee to monitor the social situation in the European Union and the development of social protection policies (Article 160 of Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)), and, through its analysis, to provide input to the Council on the main social policy priorities to recommend to the Commission in the context of the preparation of the 2024 Annual Sustainable Growth Survey.

European Commission, Eurostat, Publications Office of the European Union, 2022.

This is the seventh edition of Eurostat’s monitoring report on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This 2023 edition assesses the progress of the European Union (EU) towards reaching the SDGs and is based on a set of around 100 indicators selected according to their policy relevance for the EU as well as their statistical quality. The EU SDG indicator set is aligned with — but not identical to — the UN list of global SDG indicators. Many of the selected indicators are already used to monitor existing policies, such as the European Pillar of Social Rights or the 8th Environment Action Programme.

European Commission, Eurostat, Hametner, M., et al., Publications Office of the European Union, 2023.

This publication presents EU-level data for the EU SDG indicators, to accompany the first EU Voluntary Review on progress in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It showcases the EU SDG indicators and their development since the SDGs were adopted in 2015. The indicators are presented in a way that reflects different aspects within a goal, consistent with the approach in the annual Eurostat SDG monitoring reports. The presentation focuses on the period starting from 2015 – the year the 2030 Agenda was adopted – until the latest available data point (usually 2022 or 2021). For a more detailed analysis of the EU trends and a description of the methodology, please refer to the full Eurostat SDG publication.