48 Amendments of Brigitte VAN DEN BERG related to 2024/2077(INI)
Amendment 3 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 6 a (new)
Citation 6 a (new)
– having regard to the Council recommendation of 12 March 2021 on Roma equality, inclusion and participation1a, _________________ 1a [1] OJ C 93, 19.3.2021, p. 1–14
Amendment 4 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 6 b (new)
Citation 6 b (new)
– having regard to the EU Roma strategic framework for equality, inclusion and participation for 2020-2030 of 7 October 2020,
Amendment 9 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 16 a (new)
Citation 16 a (new)
– having regard of the report by Mario Draghi on the future of European competitiveness,
Amendment 10 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 16 b (new)
Citation 16 b (new)
– having regard of the report by Enrico Letta on the Single Market,
Amendment 48 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas the European Child Guarantee aims to prevent and combat the social exclusion of children in need by guaranteeing effective and free access to high-quality early childhood education and care, education, school-based activities, at least one healthy meal each school day and healthcare, and effective access to healthy nutrition and adequate housing; whereas the Executive Vice-President- designate for People, Skills and Preparedness is responsible for strengthening the Child Guarantee;
Amendment 50 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E a (new)
Recital E a (new)
Ea. whereas one child in four is still at risk of poverty and social exclusion in the European Union1a, and whereas the current trend will not meet the target of reducing the number of children in poverty by at least 5 million by 2030; whereas ESF+ resources alone are in no way sufficient for addressing the challenge of child poverty in the EU and, therefore, a significant increase in funding for the European Child Guarantee as well as synergies with other European and national funds are of utmost importance; _________________ 1a https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/product s-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20240719-1
Amendment 57 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E b (new)
Recital E b (new)
Eb. whereas the Commission has proposed minimum targets for 2030 to ensure progress towards Roma equality, inclusion and participation under the 10- year plan to support Roma in the EU; whereas these targets include, among others, reducing the gap in housing deprivation by at least one third, cutting the proportion of Roma children who attend segregated primary schools by at least half in Member States with a significant Roma population, and reducing the poverty gap between Roma and general population by at least half; whereas the ESF+ will remain the main financial tool for reaching the 2030 Roma targets;
Amendment 61 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E c (new)
Recital E c (new)
Ec. whereas the report on the Future of European Competitiveness by Mario Draghi warns of the significant skills gap the EU is facing with 77% of EU companies reporting that even newly recruited employees do not have the required skills, 42% of Europeans lacking digital basic skills; whereas the report deplores the insufficient number of workers benefiting from training and the lack of progress in this area with more than 50 million workers requiring training to meet the headline target of adults participating in training every year; whereas this report justifies a massive investment from the ESF+ in skills and training; whereas investments in skills from EU funds have been insufficient in terms of size and have lacked strategic focus;
Amendment 63 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E d (new)
Recital E d (new)
Ed. whereas timely investments in the reskilling and upskilling of workers that are at risk of losing their jobs can prevent them from becoming trapped in poverty;
Amendment 64 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E e (new)
Recital E e (new)
Ee. whereas demographic changes will lead to a smaller workforce; whereas this necessitates upskilling, expanding the workforce and reskilling those whose skills have become obsolete;
Amendment 65 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E f (new)
Recital E f (new)
Ef. whereas vocationally trained professionals and people with practical skills are essential to European societies, yet are underrepresented in policy-making and undervalued; whereas labour market participation is lower among this group;
Amendment 82 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Insists that the objectives of the ESF+ should be to achieve high employment levels with adequate wages, decent working conditions, healthy working environments and social security coverage, in order to develop a skilled, competitive and resilient workforce, ready for the twin transition and the future world of work, and to build fair social protections and inclusive and cohesive societies, with the aims of eradicating poverty and delivering on the principles and the headline targets set out in the EPSR;
Amendment 84 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Highlights the need for the deployment of the ESF+ to be aligned with the employment guidelines that provide the basis, together with the guidelines for the economic policies, for the country-specific recommendations developed in the European Semester;
Amendment 86 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Calls for a strong, reinforced, stand-alone ESF+ with significantly increased public support for existing instruments aimed at providing for the poorest in our socieinvesting in skills, helping lifting people out of poverty and social exclusion, boosting social investment and entrepreneurship, and investing in people’s capabilities; insists, therefore, on doublincreasing the funding for the ESF+ post- 2027;
Amendment 92 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Expresses strong concerns over attempts to split or merge the existing ESF+ with other funds, since that would create serious risks for the implementation of its objectivesCalls on the Commission to provide increased and dedicated funding for attaining the objectives of the ESF+ and those of the EPSR and its action plan, and the reaching of the ESPR’s headline targets; warns that unifying or simplifying funds may not improve their effectiveness;
Amendment 100 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Believes that a different ESF+ governance wouldmay not lead to the loss of priority given to social aspects, including employment, skills and social inclusion projects, and to the funding not reaching local levels and those most in need, whileor increasing the risk of reallocation of funds for other purposes;
Amendment 103 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5a. Expresses that the partnership principle is essential to the success of the ESF+ and must be maintained under the next MFF; highlights the need for the ESF+ governance model to allow for national, regional and local specificities and challenges to be well-reflected in operational programmes, not least by taking due account of the expertise of national and regional stakeholders, including civil society, and by ensuring that the funding goes to organisations and activities that target people in need;
Amendment 110 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure the participation of social partners, local and regional governments, educational institutions, civil society organisations (CSOs) and representatives of the target groups in all design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation stages of the ESF+, to allocate adequate funding for this purpose and to prevent the exclusion of smaller actors;
Amendment 122 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Underlines that the ESF+ post-2027 should invest in people’s capabilities and in tackling enduring and new social challenges and stay close to the general and specific objectives set out in the current ESF+; emphasises the importance of the fund’s principles of shared management, clear objectives and thematic concentrations, and that most of the fund should be spent as close as possible to those using the fund;
Amendment 132 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Stresses that the ESF+ should not be used to respond to emergencies or crises; insists that a social rescue facility capable of reacting to socialprimarily address structural social and economic challenges and be used when necessary to respond to emergencies andor crisis situations should supplement the ESF+; calls on the Commission to build on the success of the temporary EU instrument launched in 2020, entitled ‘Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE)’, in fighting temporary unemployment, and to put forward an EU unemployment reinsurance scheme without further delayes; calls therefore on the Commission to come up with proposals to provide the multi-annual financial framework with a financial reserve instrument that enables the EU to respond rapidly and in a flexible manner to social emergencies and crisis situations in order to supplement the ESF+ and other cohesion funds;
Amendment 140 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 a (new)
Paragraph 10 a (new)
10a. Underlines the need for the ESF+ to be based on a social investment strategy and life-long approach, thus supporting measures that can provide medium to long term solutions to people, by lifting them out of poverty and social exclusion, boosting entrepreneurship and social innovation, investing in children and early childhood facilities and investing in strategic skills, thus helping people to find a job, or to re-and upskill in view of job transitions;
Amendment 142 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Insists that parts of the ESF+ should target the most disadvantaged people in our societies, regardless of their sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion or belief, or racial or ethnic origin – in particular marginalised communities such as Roma people, people with disabilities or chronic diseases, homeless people, vulnerable children and elderly people; underlines that the ESF+ must be inclusive, with special attention given to all kinds of families, including single-parent families, families with more than two parents and rainbow families as well as children deprived of parental care; further stresses that the ESF+ should encourage the adoption of measures that prevent family separation for families in precarious situations including parenting education programs, family-focused therapy, and employment training;
Amendment 158 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Calls on the Commission, in the light of current challenges, to include in the specific objectives of the ESF+ the promotion of the just transition, the socio- economic integration of migrants, including labour migrants, and of people with disabilities, the social inclusion of women who are victims of gender-based violence and the integration of older people;
Amendment 166 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12 a (new)
Paragraph 12 a (new)
12a. Calls on the Commission to ensure that Member States base the distribution of their share of ESF+ funding across regions and objectives on measurable indicators, results of various EU reports and recommendations, and anticipated economic displacements;
Amendment 172 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Stresses that reaching the EPSR’s targets on poverty becomes challenging, unless specific support is dedicated to alleviating the pressure ondeveloping medium to long term solutions to lift people out of poverty and making them more resilient to upcoming challenges, addressing current gaps in our social protection systems and mitigating the social impact of crises in a targeted manner; insists on dedicating support to ensure decent living conditions for all, with access to high- quality essential services; calls for the EU anti-poverty strategy, outlined in Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s political guidelines for the 2024- 2029 term, to be implemensupported via the ESF+, with its binding poverty- reduction targets, national living wage indices and reference budgets used as benchmarks, as well as adequate policies at both the EU and national levels, applying a multidimensional approach;
Amendment 181 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Stresses that addressing child poverty requires appropriately funded, comprehensive and integrated measures, together with the implementation of the European Child Guarantee at national level, and insists that it constitute a central pillar of the EU anti-poverty strategy; repeats its previous demands for the ESF+ post-2027 to include a dedicated budget of at least EUR 20 billion for the European Child Guarantee; insists that all the Member States should allocate at least 5 % of their ESF+ resources to the European Child Guarantee and at least 10 % for those Member States with a higher portionrate of children at risk of poverty or social exclusion above the EU average;
Amendment 189 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Urges the Commission to raisemaintain the earmarking for social inclusion beyondat the current 25 % and the earmarking for food aid and basic material assistance for the most deprived persons to 5 %, in response to rising living and food costsat 3 %;
Amendment 198 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Shares the ambition to prioritise the tackling of the housing crises, and insists that the ESF+ post-2027 should enhance timely and equal access to affordable, decent, sustainable and high-quality services promoting access to housing; believes that all the Member States must invest at least 5 % of their ESF+ resources into tackling homelessness;
Amendment 212 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Emphasises the need to ensure sufficient financing of the ESF+ post-2027 for high-quality and publicaccessible vocational education for all, skills development, upskilling, reskilling and lifelong learning, and for the addressing of skills shortages, ensuring that individuals can successfully navigate labour market transitions;
Amendment 214 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17 a (new)
Paragraph 17 a (new)
17a. Insists that measures aiming to improve access to the labour market and promote skills formation should be designed in a way that promotes and recognises the autonomy of individuals, avoiding blanket prescriptions; calls for the promotion of measures that stimulate the demand for such measures, not least via instruments like the individual learning accounts, micro-credentials and skills vouchers;
Amendment 215 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17 b (new)
Paragraph 17 b (new)
17b. Calls for upskilling and reskilling to be implemented in close collaboration with key actors in local economies, including governments, educational institutions and employers, especially SMEs, in order to ensure that skills investments match local labour market needs; urges that such measures focus on future-proof jobs, like those in strategic sectors;
Amendment 216 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17 c (new)
Paragraph 17 c (new)
17c. Urges the Commission to require from Member States that their plans anticipate long-term demographic developments; notes the importance of addressing low labour market participation rates among specific groups, such as women, people with low educational attainment, people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups;
Amendment 217 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17 d (new)
Paragraph 17 d (new)
17d. Calls on the Commission to explore interventions that help SMEs anticipate future skills needs and reskill and upskill employees at risk of future job-loss accordingly;
Amendment 218 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17 e (new)
Paragraph 17 e (new)
17e. Recalls the wide range of skills- enhancing initiatives undertaken at the EU level, such as the Pact for Skills or the net-zero industry academies, that can provide useful guidance to the development of education and training programmes at the national and regional level; calls on Member States to make a better use of such initiatives and calls on the Commission to make concrete proposals on how to integrate them into the skills component of the operational programmes developed under the ESF+;
Amendment 219 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17 f (new)
Paragraph 17 f (new)
17f. Emphasises the need to invest in strategic skills to address the current competitive gap of the EU and to develop a strong, competitive and sustainable industrial base in the EU; highlights that the ESF + should play a key role in providing workers with the right skills and should support the deployment of strategic skills programmes based on existing and future-oriented industrial ecosystems and their anticipation of skills needs; encourages therefore the European Commission and the Member States to develop the skills component of their operational programmes in alignment with such anticipation strategies;
Amendment 229 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Calls for a strengthening of efforts to support the implementation of the Youth Guarantee with an increased earmarking for all Member States that dedicate at least 15 % of their ESF+ resources; repeats in this context its call on the Member States to ban unpaid open labour market traineeships;
Amendment 251 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21
Paragraph 21
21. Calls for the ESF+ to boost the implementation of the European care strategy by investing in quality early childhood education and care through community-based, person-centred, high- quality, affordable and accessible care systems; Calls on the Member States to make full use of the ESF+ funds as well as other relevant European and national funds in order to finalise the deinstitutionalisation process so as to ensure that every child can grow up in a family or community environment;
Amendment 265 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22
Paragraph 22
22. Stresses that the implementation of the EPSR and the reforms needed to comply with the country-specific recommendations in the European Semester are also dependant on the strong support of the ESF+ for certain policy measures, especially those related to strengthening social welfare systems, ensuring inclusive and high-quality public education and training, reducing child poverty and eradicating homelessness;
Amendment 266 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22 a (new)
Paragraph 22 a (new)
22a. Recalls that EU policies can deliver the biggest impact when they are coordinated with funding instruments and other strategic frameworks, such as the European Semester and its country- specific recommendations; highlights the need for Member States to develop their ESF+ operational programmes in close coordination with their structural plans foreseen in their national programmes and the policy measures addressing their country-specific recommendations; notes that the effectiveness of interventions funded by ESF+ depends on the successful implementation of reforms; calls for a stronger link between the European Semester and the ESF+;
Amendment 273 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23
Paragraph 23
23. Calls on the Commission to allocate consistent financial resources to capacity- building, not only for public authorities but also for social partners, education and training providers and civil society organisations with the aims of empowering social partnersthem to play a relevant role in areas of their competence, of strengthening their capacity to engage in social dialogue both at EU and national level and/or of enhancing social partners’ actdelivering on their core missions – and include technical assistance for these three purposes – with an adequate minimum percentage investment obligation from the Member States; further insists that social partners and CSOs should be guaranteed access to funding for social policy objectives in all the Member States on an equal basis;
Amendment 276 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24
Paragraph 24
24. Underlines that it is of the utmost importance that small social enterprises and CSOorganisations have access to all aspects of the ESF+; calls for an increased co-financing rate of at least 90 % for measuron the Commission to provide co-financing rates that can allow small entities with limited capacity to have access targeting the most deprived implemented by CSOs, and at least 70 % for those implemented by social enterpriso funding while retaining a minimum number of different co-financing rates in order to move towards a simplification of the rules;
Amendment 287 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 25
Paragraph 25
25. Calls on the Member States to ensure that regional and local authorities and organisations have a say in projects financed from national budgets and insists on the need to maintain the partnership approach of the current ESF+, which is key to strengthen the quality of the programmes financed under the ESF+;
Amendment 293 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26
Paragraph 26
26. Insists that the rules governing the use of the ESF+ must ensure and enhance compliance with the rule of law, the EU acquis, the highest EU social standards, social rights and democratic principles, and be aligned with the EPSR, the UN’s sustainable development goals and fundamental human and workers’ rights included in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU;
Amendment 301 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 27
Paragraph 27
27. Calls for strong and more effective social conditionalitiesy in rules on public procurement and concessions, with effective sanctionsgoverning EU cohesion funds, including the ESF+; encourages the Commission to create a comprehensive database, supplementing the Eurostat data, to allow for timely and reliable monitoring of the developments in employment, living conditions and industrial relations;
Amendment 304 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28
Paragraph 28
28. Calls for the reduction of the administrative burden, notably by simplifying the application processes for accessing funds and the reporting procedures for organisations, in particular for those of a smaller size; warns that simplification must not compromise the fundamental principles of shared management; calls for the differentiation of reporting procedures depending on the size of a beneficiary and the amount of resources involved; warns that improving access to funds through simplification must not disproportionally affect the principles of partnership, transparency and accountability, ensuring the proper administration of public funds;
Amendment 307 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28 a (new)
Paragraph 28 a (new)
28a. Recognises that excessive reliance on metrics such as the error rate may lead to more administrative burden, compromising the effectiveness of the fund; notes that different metrics, including measuring inputs, outputs, performance or qualitative measures, may fit different objectives and interventions; urges the Commission to explore the use of performance-based metrics for some interventions to reduce administrative burden and improve effectiveness of the fund; warns that incorrect use of performance-based budgeting can provide perverse incentives, especially in cases where performance is difficult to measure, for instance with social work; encourages the Commission to trust professionals on the ground and strike a better balance between monitoring and autonomy;
Amendment 309 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28 b (new)
Paragraph 28 b (new)
28b. Calls on the Commission to ensure more thorough evaluation of the effectiveness of individual interventions without imposing major new burdens on providers, for instance by forming evaluation desks at both the EU and national levels;
Amendment 317 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 30 a (new)
Paragraph 30 a (new)
30a. Points out the success of reaching out target groups by developing low- threshold information points embedded in society, such as walk-in job counselling offices at places that citizens visit in their daily lives;