Combating poverty in Europe: mixed results, new proposals

Abstract:

Since the 1970s, the European Union has been elaborating definitions and data on poverty. The Member States have managed to gradually agree on guidelines to measure and to act. In the 2000s, the Lisbon Strategy provided new impetus, with the explicit ambition of moving towards eliminating poverty and in the 2010s, the Europe 2020 strategy set a quantified target of reducing the number of poor people (20 million less).

The moment of truth for the first reviews and perspectives, coming at a time of a major health and economic crisis, makes it possible to review these indicators and intervention tools. This note supports two proposals. Firstly, in favour of concentrated efforts on extreme poverty and on the homeless. Secondly, for a truly European approach to assessing poverty, with a calculation threshold set at EU level.

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