Background
The 7th Round Table against poverty and social exclusion focussed on the issue of active inclusion in the light of the Commission recommendation and experiments undertaken by the French government in this area.
The work of the Round Table will also contribute to the preparation of the European Year of combating poverty and social exclusion in 2010.
For the first time, an informal ministerial meeting on the fight against poverty immediately followed the Roundtable. It aimed to :
* strengthen political commitment from Member States in this area, and * make recommendations to feed into the December Council on active inclusion.
Conference content
The Conference was organised under three pillars, with a number of Workshops under each.
- 1st Pillar : Adequate level of income support
- Workshop 1 : Minimum income guarantee
- 2nd Pillar : An inclusive labour market
- Workshop 2 : Integration and support to find employment
- Workshop 3 : Quality sustainable employment
- 3rd Pillar : Better access to quality services
- Workshop 4 : Access to housing
- Workshop 5 : Financial inclusion
- Workshop 6 : Access to healthcare
Cross-cutting theme
- Workshop 7 : Active inclusion strategy tools
The Roundtable was attended by mostly social NGOs but also representatives from local and regional government and a few business or employers’ representatives.
Health Although EPHA welcomed the inclusion of health in the workshops for this year, it was a shame that the focus of the workshop was narrowed to a question of service access when the public health issues in poverty and social exclusion are so ingrained and symbiotic. The participation in the workshop was limited, with mostly medical and service-specific representation.
The issue of health inequalities was raised by Caroline Costongs, Workshop speaker from EuroHealthNet, who presented the DETERMINE project however this was not picked up by the majority of participants.
Conclusions The outcome of the conference from a health perspective was disappointing and indeed given the timing of the conference with the escalation of the financial crisis, many of the political speakers continued to talk about the increase in employment figures and progress seen over the last few years.
EPHA would have welcomed more discussion on addressing the poverty facing many families in Europe with the current financial instability, as well as looking at the core causes and determinants of poverty, social exclusion - and by extension health inequalities - as well as the issue of improving access and active inclusion to those facing poverty.
Given that poverty and social exclusion are generational tackling the cyclical nature of these issues and breaking the poverty chain is crucial to achieving inclusion in Europe.
More information
The 7th Roundtable on Poverty and Social Inclusions
EPHA-related articles
Preparation for 7th Round Table on poverty and social exclusion - 7 May 2008
6th European round table on poverty and social exclusion, 16-17 October, Ponta Delgada
What role for health care systems in reducing health inequalities ?
EU DETERMINE project tackles health inequalities
DETERMINE : a new consortium on socio-economical determinants of health
