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Key Issues in the European Council - State of play in March 2024
This EPRS publication, 'Key issues in the European Council', which is updated every quarter to coincide with European Council meetings, seeks to provide an overview of the institution's activities on major EU issues. It analyses 12 broad policy areas, explaining the legal and political background, the main priorities and orientations defined by the European Council and the results of its involvement to date, as well as some of the future challenges in each policy field.
Main activities of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs 2019-2024
The European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission proclaimed the European Pillar of Social Rights in 2017. Spelled out in 20 principles, the social pillar has since served as a compass towards building a stronger social Europe. In the related action plan, the Commission set out concrete initiatives and, after the Porto Social Summit of May 2021, EU lawmakers committed to headline targets for 2030 regarding employment, training, and poverty. Consequently, this legislative term has seen ...
Gender Mainstreaming in the parliamentary work of the LIBE Committee
This study, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the LIBE Committee, is aimed at assessing the state of implementation of gender mainstreaming activities in the parliamentary work of the LIBE Committee and, particularly, it analyses the adoption of a gender mainstreaming and intersectional approach in LIBE’s legislative and non-legislative work in the 2021–2022 period.
European Social Fund Plus
The European Social Fund (ESF) was set up under the Treaty of Rome with a view to improving workers’ mobility and employment opportunities. Its tasks and operational rules were subsequently revised to reflect developments in the economic and employment situation in the Member States, as well as the evolution of the political priorities defined at EU level.
Policy Departments’ Monthly Highlights March 2024
European cross-border associations
Responding to repeated calls from the European Parliament to propose common Union-wide rules to facilitate the cross-border activity of non-profit organisations (NPOs), the Commission has proposed a directive on European cross-border associations (ECBAs). Parliament is due to vote on the report on this proposal, submitted by its Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI), during its March plenary session.
Global challenges – including climate change, geopolitical conflict, erosion of democratic principles and social inequalities – affect people's daily lives and future prospects. A collective European response over the next 10 years could help to address these challenges – and offer benefits worth up to €3 trillion a year. This represents around 18 % of EU gross domestic product (GDP), equivalent to €6 700 per citizen every year. Referring to the European Parliament's work during the 2019-2024 term ...
The European Social Security Pass (ESSPASS) - A Digital Enforcement Tool for Labour Rights?
Social and youth housing in the EU
Access to housing in the EU has become problematic in recent years. Demography and urbanisation-related structural factors, aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the conflict in Ukraine, soaring energy prices, the cost-of-living crisis and (already high) housing prices that keep rising are preventing many people from accessing decent housing solutions. The lack of affordable housing supply only adds to this situation. These difficulties affect not only low- but now also middle-income households, as ...
Research for REGI committee - Regional connectivity through an adequate transport infrastructure
This At a glance note summaries the study focusing on regional connectivity through an adequate transport infrastructure. The study provides an overview of the aspects of regional connectivity through adequate cohesion policy investments in rail and road transport infrastructures, mostly in the programming period 2014-2020. In detail, this analysis covers all types of transport-related investments (for goods and people) financed from the European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund. Moreover ...