In 2013, the European Commission adopted a Recommendation on Investing in children: Breaking the cycle of disadvantage which sets out a common European Framework for tackling child poverty and social exclusion and promoting child well-being. To support the Commission in taking stock of the Recommendation’s implementation and identify key ways forward, the European Social Policy Network (ESPN) was asked to prepare country reports on the implementation of the Recommendation since 2013.

The overall finding of the ESPN analysis is that the modest progress made in the direction outlined in the Recommendation is insufficient to the scale of the problem in many countries. Particularly worrying is the very limited progress that has been made in many of the countries with (very) high levels of child poverty or social exclusion. A significant intensification of effort is thus urgently required to achieve the aims of the EU Recommendation.

This Synthesis Report brings together the findings of the national reports written by each of the 35 ESPN Country Teams of independent experts and makes a series of detailed overall recommendations for strengthening the implementation of the EU Recommendation and linking it to the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights put forward by the European Commission in April 2017. Concrete actions are also recommended for individual countries.

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