The conference will be an opportunity to exchange together on the following questions:

• What integrated strategy should the EU propose to effectively fight poverty?  What can we learn from the past? What do people in poverty want and expect from the EU? How does this connect to the European Pillar of Social Rights?
• How should this strategy be mainstreamed into a post 2020 strategy? Can the Sustainable Development Goals offer a better and more operational framework to take over from Europe 2020? Should this be through a re-vamped European Semester? Or another process?
• How should we mobilize for this in the context of the Future of Europe?

It aims to:

• Present ideas & messages from EAPN from an internal session of members, including input from people experiencing poverty;
• Get feedback & debate with the European Commission & Council;
• Get responses from other Civil Society Organisations & partners;

Give special attention to the SDG agenda; the follow up on the European Pillar of Social Rights, and the implications of the Future of Europe proposals, in trying to move forward for a transformative social and sustainable framework for beyond 2020.

Key speakers

• People experiencing poverty & EAPN members
• Hugh Frazer, Coordinator ESPN and Professor from Maynooth University, Ireland
• Ruth Paserman, Commissioner Marianne Thyssens’ Cabinet
• Alexis Rinckenbach, Vice-Chair of the Social Protection Committee
• Hon. Evarist Bartolo, Minister of Education and Employment, Maltese Presidency
• Barbara Pesce-Monteiro, Director of United Nations Brussels
• Representatives from Eurodiaconia, Eurochild, EPSU, Semester Alliance
• Sonia Vila-Nunez, Secretariat General, European Commission

Participants: Around 60 EAPN members and 70 Brussels-based stakeholders 

Context
The current Europe 2020 Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth set a target to reduce poverty by at least 20 million by 2020, delivered through the coordination cycle of the European Semester. The strategy has strikingly failed to deliver so far, with 1 in 4 people now in poverty and social exclusion, an increase of 4.8 million since the target was set, with only small signs of decrease since 2014. And in the process, civil society’s role has been marginalized, crucially. The EU are now debating the future of Europe and a strategy for beyond 2020.
 
The European Pillar of Social Rights seems to present an opportunity, although its impact on poverty reduction is unclear. The need to deliver on the UN Sustainable Development Goals in the EU, committing to end poverty, also seems to offer hope, as long as it supports upwards social convergence. However, in a context of increasing anti-EU feeling, the EU is tending to stick to narrow internal market priorities, with social priorities sidelined.

EAPN’s view is different. Unless the EU can recover a ‘social heart & brain’ and ensure an effective participation of people experiencing poverty and their organisations, it will be increasingly difficult to get support from people on the ground for the EU. We must develop a positive vision of Social Europe, with concrete proposals and an effective rights-based strategy to fight poverty.