A holistic approach to eradicating poverty, which seeks to ensure adequate incomes, quality jobs and better access to social services, is advocated by the EP in an own-initiative report. MEPs call on the Council to agree an EU target for minimum wages to provide for remuneration of at least 60% of the relevant average wage and, further, to agree a timetable for achieving that target in all Member States. MEPs call on the Council to agree an EU-wide commitment to end street homelessness by 2015.

There are 78 million people in Europe who are at risk of poverty, and 8% of them actually are workers. Although having a job is the best defence against poverty, it is not always a guarantee, as  the EP own-initiative report highlights. This report on promoting social inclusion and combating poverty, including child poverty, in the EU, has been adopted by the EP in plenary session this week.

The report calls for the need of an adequate income, pointing out that some of the 27 Member States have a minimum income scheme, but others do not. MEPs encourage Member States to provide for guaranteed minimum income schemes for social inclusion.

These minimum income schemes should be complemented by support measures to facilitate social inclusion such as in housing, education, training, and lifelong learning, and income support schemes to help cover the costs to individuals and households, say MEPs.
 
Member States should also provide targeted additional benefits for disadvantaged groups (people with disabilities or chronic diseases, lone parents or households with many children), to cover extra costs such as those of personal support and the use of medical care.
 
The report also encourages Member States to take action aiming to provide child care services to 90% of children within the EU, from their birth until obligatory scholarship. These measures, would not only ensure equal opportunities from the very beginning, but they would also help to promote
better work-life balance for families. In this sense, the European Commission has recently adopted a package of measures aiming to improve  work-life balance for millions of EU citizens, including a longer and better maternity leave as well as a proposal to improve the situation of self-employed women by providing equivalent access to maternity leave, on a voluntary basis.

The report point out that children and young people make up almost one-third of the EU population and 19 million children are at risk of poverty. MEPs want child poverty reduced by 50% by 2012, and urge Member States to allocate sufficient resources to achieve this goal. They also back an approach based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Lastly, the Parliament calls on the Council to agree an EU-wide commitment to end street homelessness by 2015. Member States are urged to provide integrated policies to ensure access to quality and affordable housing for all and to devise "winter emergency plans".
 
The report was adopted with 540 votes in favour, 57 against and 32 abstentions.