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institutional actors, as well as creative methodologies is a core concern, if people with direct experience of poverty are to be involved as key stakeholders.

## EAPN Assessment

EAPN members have attempted to actively engage in the entire Semester process throughout the year, focussed on getting delivery on the poverty and other social targets. This has meant attempting to engage in the NRP process as stakeholders at national level - providing inputs to the NRP, responding to drafts, and attempting to be involved in the implementation and evaluation. This work has been supported by EAPN-run capacity building workshops and a yearly updated Tool Kit. (Feb) Member's have then provided their own input to the Commission's proposals of Country -Specific Recommendations, also assessing the implementation of the previous years' CSRs. Together at EU level, a synthesis document of these findings has been developed and sent to the Commission in March/April. In May-July, Members have made an assessment of the NRPs together in a workshop, and based on a questionnaire produced an assessment report. Drawing key messages from this assessment, a letter is sent to the Commissionand other EUinstitutions, highlighting key recommendations for the AGS. Following the AGS, an appraisal is carried out, before initiating the cycle again.

The Commission's stocktaking assessment recognizes that awareness and ownership are lacking, and national stakeholder engagement and Parliament engagement needs to be 18 improved. EAPN's own assessment highlights 12 National Networks managing some type of engagement, but with 75% of networks assessing the engagement as weak and low quality, with little impact. There is little sign of improvement in the extent or quality of engagement, despite a continued priority given by the Commission in the AGS and internal NRP guidelines. EAPN members highlight a focus on formal consultation, with a tendency to have one-off, primarily information meetings, often without an agenda or minutes, with little opportunity to comment on drafts. When comments are possible to the draft, few members feel that adequate feedback is provided, or that any real input is achieved. Where promising examples exist (PL, FR, BE, LU, ES), limited mutual learning or exchange of good practice is being prioritized. Such encouraging examples include the establishment of working thematic groups (PL and LU), the use of the group to develop an integrated anti-poverty strategy linked to the ex-ante conditionality in Structural Funds; the establishment of a National Platform Against Poverty (BE); a compact with regular structured consultation on the NRP with a chance to make detailed inputs to the draft, many of which were taken on board in the final draft (ES); and the annexing of stakeholders views to the NRP (FR). In terms of the engagement of national parliaments, debates are rarely organized. Although examples were given in BE, IE, LU, CZ, DE and ES, in general these were seen more as a rubber-stamping exercise with little impact on content. In Ireland, the debate in the Irish Parliament did result in some changes, but the implementation is unclear nor the process for continuing engagement. This clearly underlines a growing democratic deficit, that risks undermining the legitimacy of the Semester. See detailed Recommendations for improvement in Question 3

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