Six new Flash Reports prepared by the European Social policy Network (ESPN) have just become available and provide information on recent policy initiatives in Luxembourg, FYR Macedonia, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Turkey.

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• “InSitu Jobs” is a project of the Luxembourg federation of migrant organisations. It aims at supporting recognised refugees and legally residing third country nationals in finding their way onto the labour market. The flexibility of the approach overcomes procedural and competence problems related to official institutions and agencies.
• Huge flows of refugees in the period 2015-2016 transiting through and staying in the FYR Macedonia exposed the weaknesses of the institutional capacities of the national social protection system. Around 300 refugees currently face inadequate social service provision, poor treatment of unaccompanied minors, and lack of educational services.
• Municipalities in the Netherlands fail to sufficiently respect the rules concerning their citizens’ personal social data protection. If no improvement is forthcoming, municipalities risk high fines, the discontinuation of important data collection and processing applications; they also risk damaging their reputations.
• In June 2016, the Norwegian Parliament discussed a package of proposals from the Government to limit the inflow of asylum seekers. While some of the toughest measures were rejected, a significant part of the package was adopted with broad Parliamentary support. In July the government followed up by launching new proposals to limit the social security rights of refugees.
• Undocumented migrants were officially excluded from the Spanish healthcare system in 2012. The implementation of this measure was extremely uneven between the different regions. Since September 2015 there has been a proposal from the Inter-territorial Council of the Spanish Healthcare System to extend primary care to undocumented migrants, but no decision has been taken in that respect to-date.
• Since April 2016, a new law in Turkey introduced mandatory registration for “employable” social assistance beneficiaries with the official employment agency. Three refusals of job or training programme offers will result in a rescinding of social assistance for a period of one year. The law also provides incentives to employers who hire social assistance beneficiaries.