Vaesus

The Committee welcomes the increased attention brought to social investment, a greater targeting of European funds to sound employment and social policies, a dedicated youth employment initiative and youth guarantee scheme, and better cross-border mobility. It also welcomes the foreseen strengthened social dialogue as part of the European Semester process. It particularly supports the idea to step up closer surveillance of employment and social imbalances within the EMU through a systematic monitoring of rates of unemployment, of young people not in employment or training or education, of household income, poverty and inequality. The proposed scoreboard should pro-actively detect asymmetric developments and spill-over into overall economic performance and trigger a timely and effective adjustment mechanism and policy response.

It is time to build the social pillar of the EMU within the framework of a social Europe, without which citizens' adhesion to the European project as a whole will remain at risk. The EESC recommends to launch a new European Social Action Programme with tangible measures to develop social governance and participatory ownership of the European project. The EESC would propose two new exploratory initiatives: - The issuance of European Social Bonds financed, owned, managed and supervised transparently by civil society stakeholders; - The setting-up of a European Education Network for Unemployed Workers.

Homelessness is the fourth most common reason given for poverty in the EU. It causes major personal tragedies, and also has significant social implications. If the number of homeless people was reduced, social costs would also decrease, and with better social inclusion Europe would progress. The right to housing is enshrined in many countries' constitutions. Still, there is no single and consistent method of collecting data on homelessness and the social integration of homeless people remains a very complex and difficult process. This EESC opinion, which focuses on both the effects and the causes of this problem, proposes measures to address it.