European Union News - Social Affairs

The European Economic and Social Committee reached a compromise solution to adopt two opinions on sensitive topics that are at the heart of the debate across Europe: the future of the pension systems and employment for young people. The EESC deplores the lack of attention given to public pension systems, which need to be strengthened as an important component of the social security net.

The European Commission announced new support for family planning in developing countries. The new €23 million package will form part of the commitment reached at a family planning summit organised by the UK Government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The European Commission pledge contributes to the summit's goal of providing family planning services to an additional 120 million women by 2020 in the poorest developing countries.

According to a report from the European Commission, children with special educational needs and disabled adults are still getting a raw deal, despite commitments by Member States to promote inclusive education. The report also calls on Member States to provide adequately financed inclusive education policies.

MEPs at the Employment and Social Affairs Committee rejected the idea of making the allocation of funds to social projects conditional upon the respect for budget discipline required by the EU stability and growth pact. For them, the European Social Fund (ESF) should account for at least 25% of EU cohesion policy funding in 2014-2020.

In Asia and in Africa, less than half of children are currently registered. The European Commission announced the launching of a EU-UNICEF project to be implemented in Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Myanmar, Mozambique, Uganda, Kiribati, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands and that will replace existing registration processes. €6 million will be allocated to the project in total. In a period of three years the gap between rural and urban rates of birth registration is expected to reduce by at least half thanks to the project.

According to Eurostat, the unemployment rates varied widely across the EU regions in 2011. Thus, the highest rates were registered in the regions of Andalucía (30.4%) and Canarias (29.7%) in Spain while the lowest rates were recorded in the regions of Tirol and Salzburg (both 2.5%) in Austria and Zeeland (2.7%) in the Netherlands. In addition, seventeen regions had a rate of 19.2% or higher, double that of the EU: ten regions in Spain, four French Overseas Departments and three regions in Greece.