The European Care strategy

Key points

The EESC:

• proposes to launch a European Care Guarantee, which would ensure life-long access to affordable quality healthcare and care services for everyone living in the EU;
• underlines the importance of supporting families in their fundamental role as caregivers, including investing beyond social policies and in communities;
• asks for adopting specific measures to tackle Gender equality, namely addressing gender stereotypes, attracting more men in the sector and ensure better distribution of care within households;
• highlights the need for a life cycle approach promoting healthy and active ageing and calls for the development of a European Strategy for Older Persons;
• calls for adequate funding to be allocated to the care sector. The whole range of care suppliers must be mobilised, under strong quality assurance frameworks. Member States must encourage quality job creation and ensure that jobs in social care are attractive, adequately paid and valued and offer good career prospects;
• asks for better data provision on children's participation in early childhood education and care to ensure comparability and the availability of more comprehensive information for designing and implementing reforms;
• requests that the EU institutions set up a gender-balanced High-Level Expert Group on Long-Term Care and that Care receivers' and care providers' are meaningful involved throughout the policy cycle;
• is convinced that the mobility of care professionals and labour migration from non-EU countries need to be considered, also taking into account the high number of undocumented workers already working as carers in Europe. This should be coupled with tools for matching demand and supply and recognition of qualifications;
• calls for a mid-term review of the Recommendations based on the monitoring of the Barcelona targets and the general objectives of long-term care reforms.