Thursday

28th Sep 2023

Analysis

EU Child Guarantee under fire as poverty figures rise

  • The EU Child Guarantee recommends that member states ensure a minimum set of key services for households struggling to meet the basic needs of their youngest children (Photo: Unsplash)
Listen to article

In 2022, the number of children at risk of poverty and social exclusion in the EU increased again — to 24.7 percent, i.e. one-child-in-four.

The pandemic and the cost of living crisis have reversed the downward trend in these figures seen up to 2019, despite efforts of member states, including through the EU child guarantee.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

  • In 2021, nearly half of children in Romania were living in poverty or social exclusion (Photo: Unsplash)

The guarantee is based on a Council recommendation from 2021 and, although not legally-binding, recommends that member states ensure a minimum set of key services for households struggling to meet the basic needs of their youngest children. These are access to adequate housing, healthy food, education, or health care.

However, more than two years later, the response from EU countries is still insufficient, both in terms of action and speed of implementation.

In 2021, Romania, Bulgaria and Spain reached levels of child poverty well above average.

According to Eurostat, 41.5 percent of children in Romania were then living in poverty or social exclusion, compared to 11 and 13 percent in countries such as Slovenia or the Czech Republic.

"The implementation [of the child guarantee] is not going as expected," Romanian MEP and vice-chair of the child rights intergroup Dragos Pislaru (Renew group) told EUobserver. "We could do more."

As a result of the recommendation, national capitals were given nine months to appoint a national coordinator and draw up an action plan to tackle the problem.

So far, four countries (Romania, Austria, Latvia and Germany) have not submitted their national action plans. And even some EU countries that have done so have merely repackaged old measures.

"Many of the policies included in the action plans already existed," highlights a new report by the EU's fundamental rights agency (FRA). "This might mean that existing practices continue without any policy improvements."

Enough power?

As for national coordinators, all countries have appointed their own, albeit with varying degrees of responsibility.

Given their different backgrounds and levels of seniority, "it is unclear whether they will have sufficient authority to fulfil their role effectively," the FRA adds.

The agency considers that the follow-up to these plans should be monitored as part of the European semester and that the results should be included in the recommendations made to each member state.

For the Renew Europe MEP, more than a recommendation is needed to respond to this urgent problem facing European societies.

"We need guidance, we need proper implementation and institutional structure," Pislaru stressed.

His proposal is to set up a European Children's Authority, along the lines of the European Labour Authority (ELA), but without the status of an agency, without an executive mandate, and without interfering in the social competences of the member states.

The idea is to create a flexible agency capable of moving ahead the agenda, identifying problems, seeking solutions, proposing best practice and, above all, improving coordination between EU countries.

Already behind schedule

Member states have committed to reducing the number of people living in poverty or social exclusion by at least 15 million by 2030. At least five million of those should be children.

"The target is no longer ambitious," Enrico Tormen, senior advocacy advisor at Save the Children Europe, told EUobserver. "It does not reflect reality because it was set before the crisis we are living through."

The children's advocacy group is now calling for these targets to be adjusted, particularly to ensure that the EU child guarantee is not wasted as a tool to combat what it describes as a pan-European crisis.

But that is a crisis that does not affect everyone equally. Poverty is more prevalent among certain groups and in certain European regions, although it is suffered by all member states, even the Nordic ones.

In the case of Roma children, more than eight-out-of-ten lived in households at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2021.

Migrant children from Ukraine and other third countries are another such group.

Between 2021 and 2022, the number of asylum-seeking children increased from 167,495 to 222,100. The increase is similar for unaccompanied minors.

The impact is felt in the most recent figures, but it is even more significant in the long term.

The OECD estimates that it takes about five generations for poor families to reach the average income of their country.

"Even if the crisis is over, the effects are not," Tormen notes.

"We have to revamp the entire system of investing in children, to understand that separating social assistance from education, health, housing, won't get us anywhere," Pislaru concluded.

EU Ombudsman warns of 'new normal' of crisis decision-making

Emily O'Reilly cited the post-pandemic recovery funds, the windfall taxes on energy companies, and the joint purchase of vaccines, as procedures which received limited scrutiny from the national parliaments — as a result of emergency decision-making powers that bypassed parliament.

Opinion

How do you make embarrassing EU documents 'disappear'?

The EU Commission's new magic formula for avoiding scrutiny is simple. You declare the documents in question to be "short-lived correspondence for a preliminary exchange of views" and thus exempt them from being logged in the official inventory.

Latest News

  1. Germany tightens police checks on Czech and Polish border
  2. EU Ombudsman warns of 'new normal' of crisis decision-making
  3. How do you make embarrassing EU documents 'disappear'?
  4. Resurgent Fico hopes for Slovak comeback at Saturday's election
  5. EU and US urge Azerbijan to allow aid access to Armenians
  6. EU warns of Russian 'mass manipulation' as elections loom
  7. Blocking minority of EU states risks derailing asylum overhaul
  8. Will Poles vote for the end of democracy?

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. International Medical Devices Regulators Forum (IMDRF)Join regulators, industry & healthcare experts at the 24th IMDRF session, September 25-26, Berlin. Register by 20 Sept to join in person or online.
  2. UNOPSUNOPS begins works under EU-funded project to repair schools in Ukraine
  3. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsGeorgia effectively prevents sanctions evasion against Russia – confirm EU, UK, USA
  4. International Medical Devices Regulators Forum (IMDRF)Join regulators & industry experts at the 24th IMDRF session- Berlin September 25-26. Register early for discounted hotel rates
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersGlobal interest in the new Nordic Nutrition Recommendations – here are the speakers for the launch
  6. Nordic Council of Ministers20 June: Launch of the new Nordic Nutrition Recommendations

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. International Sustainable Finance CentreJoin CEE Sustainable Finance Summit, 15 – 19 May 2023, high-level event for finance & business
  2. ICLEISeven actionable measures to make food procurement in Europe more sustainable
  3. World BankWorld Bank Report Highlights Role of Human Development for a Successful Green Transition in Europe
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersNordic summit to step up the fight against food loss and waste
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersThink-tank: Strengthen co-operation around tech giants’ influence in the Nordics
  6. EFBWWEFBWW calls for the EC to stop exploitation in subcontracting chains

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us