Social Agenda Issue 52 - EN

The technicalities of the new legislation put forward by the European Commission in May for the 2021-2027 EU budgetary framework, explained by Andriana Sukova, Deputy Director-General of the Commission’s Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion department, in charge of the European Social Fund. “We are investing €140 billion in people” Are the most ambitious options of the 2017 White Paper on the future of Europe, and its annex on the future social dimension of the EU, reflected in the European Commission proposals for the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and for the ESF+ Regulation? The MFF proposal aligns the Union's budget to our political priorities and has to address two objectives: to be fair to the Member States by giving them equal access to the EU budget; and to clearly link funding priorities to policy needs. It also tries to simplify the budget: the number of financial programmes has been substantially reduced, from 58 to 37. But is it more social? Yes, as for the first time we have a visible European Social Fund (ESF) budget included in the very structure of the MFF: 100 billion euros for the 2021-27 period! Ever since cohesion policy was created thirty years ago (see page 14), there had never been a predefined share of the budget set aside for the European Social Fund in the MFF structure itself. There was just one figure for “structural funds” (the ESF and the European Regional Development Fund, ERDF). For the 2014-2020 period, we managed for the first time to get a pre-defined percentage inserted into the Common Provisions Regulation. And now we have an actual budget indicated in the MFF itself. All Member States and regions will still be eligible for support by the structural funds or cohesion policy funding. And there will be a joint allocation method for cohesion funding which will still be based on GDP per capita but also on additional adjustment indicators reflecting the more global EU policy priorities. What does that say about the next MFF? Its structure is evolving compared to the 2014-2020 MFF. Under the big heading “Cohesion and values”, there is a specific cluster called “Investing in People, Social Cohesion and Values”. This is a clear demonstration of the importance the next EU budget will give to investing in people and rightly so: We are facing a rapidly evolving demographic and technological change. There will be less working-age people and they will have to be skilled and regularly up-skilled. We need to address this investment in people as a main prerequisite for increasing the competitiveness of the European economy. So the concept of social investment is now truly acknowledged? Absolutely, it's visible and for the first time the European budget can say: We are investing €140 billion in people, if you add up Erasmus, the European Solidarity Corps, and ESF+ (123.46 billion in 2018 prices, which makes up 140 billion for the 2021-27 period). Even if we have the best state of the art technology and production lines, we are lost if we don’t have the people who can operate them! We cannot talk about a new industrial strategy if we don't have a new approach to people and to the skills that they need. This also explains why we have a substantial increase in the investments allocated to the Digital Europe programme: €12.9 billion. The Erasmus programme is being doubled. The European Solidarity Corps programme is also being increased. SOC I A L AG E NDA / J U LY 2 0 1 8 / 1 7