The EUFunds4Social Coalition, which brings together 250 social economy organisations, including Social Economy Europe and Social Platform, has once again called in a letter for stronger social investment in the next European Union budget. The coalition argues that these organisations and their thousands of partners ensure that EU funding reaches citizens through employment, education and training, social inclusion, health, care, and social services programmes. The letter was addressed to António Costa, President of the European Council; Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission; Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament; the Cypriot Presidency of the Council of the European Union; and EU Heads of State and Government.
The letter recalls that the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) have proven to be effective instruments thanks to features such as targeted investment, earmarking resources for excluded groups, the promotion of partnership-based approaches, support for social innovation, and the adaptation of European priorities to local needs.
According to the coalition, both funds are essential for promoting quality employment, skills development, social inclusion, territorial cohesion, and the implementation of social innovation programmes and reforms.
The organisation considers that the European Commission’s proposal to create National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs) reduces social spending and puts at risk a proven funding architecture. In particular, it warns that the proposal weakens budgets, mandatory allocations for the most vulnerable groups, decentralised governance, and the role of local and regional authorities, as well as civil society.
Furthermore, it notes that the proposed results-based framework could favour the safest and easiest-to-implement interventions, to the detriment of more innovative actions, in favour of the diversity of people.
In light of this situation, the EUFunds4Social Coalition calls for an increase in social spending from 14% to 25% of NRPPs and for this to be explicitly linked to the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights. It also calls for the ESF and ERDF to be preserved as standalone funds, with their own regulations and dedicated budgets at least at current budgetary levels.
Among its demands are also maintaining clear mandates for both funds; protecting ESF allocations and priorities in areas such as social inclusion, child poverty, homelessness, youth employment, and support for social partners and civil society; as well as ensuring dedicated funding for social innovation, capacity building, and transnational cooperation.
The coalition also calls for strengthened rights-based implementation, aligned with the European Pillar of Social Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; reinforced partnership- and subsidiarity-based governance; and improved access to funding for smaller beneficiaries through simplified procedures and better co-financing conditions.
The document also refers to the expected role of the European Semester in the future budgetary process. At the presentation of its Spring Package, the Executive Vice-President for Social Rights and Skills, Quality Jobs and Preparedness, Roxana Mînzatu, stated that “a Union that invests in skills, quality jobs and living standards is a Union that can out-compete, innovate more and withstand any challenge”.
The EUFunds4Social Coalition argues that this statement must be translated into an ambitious Multiannual Financial Framework that enables such investments. It considers that the best way to achieve this is for the European Council to protect and strengthen the main funding instruments for social and territorial investment in the next European Union budget.
