Four new Flash Reports prepared by the European Social Policy Network (ESPN) are now available and provide information on recent social policy developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, Germany and Slovakia.

© Pixabay

• The government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina has recently put forward amendments to a set of laws that were already being debated in Parliament and expected to be implemented in January 2020. The government proposes to further reduce social contributions and to introduce a tax rate of 13% for all salaries above KM 800 (€410.25).  It is not yet clear how these measures will impact net salaries, especially the ones below the average wage, and substantial government funding will be required in the short term to offset the drop in revenue of the social insurance funds.
• Finland’s population is ageing faster than that of many other EU countries. Furthermore, Finland’s fertility rate, which used to be among the highest in the industrialised world, has dropped dramatically in the 2010s. Since this combination of an ageing population and a low fertility rate endangers the sustainability of the welfare state in general, and the pension system in particular, adequate policy responses are urgently needed such as increasing the labour force, improving family benefits and adopting measures to better reconcile family and working life.
• In September 2019, the German Federal Government adopted a bill on “Reporting on Homelessness” which should ensure that national data on homelessness are collected from 2022 onwards. Welfare associations and municipal umbrella organisations have welcomed the new law, but also pointed out important shortcomings. As data would only be collected for people in emergency and sheltered accommodations for the homeless, they risk providing only a partial picture of the actual situation.
• For a long time, the minimum income scheme in Slovakia has failed to provide sufficient protection against poverty and has been characterised by a lack of a transparent indexation mechanism. The “Act on Assistance in material needs” was amended earlier this year to address these issues by increasing the amount of several minimum income benefits and introducing a regular indexation mechanism. Despite these improvements, a number of issues related to the adequacy of the minimum income scheme and the eligibility criteria remain to be addressed.