28. 1. 85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 25/11 
which are not generally available. For the same rea­
son, the USA also found it necessary to establish 
civil as well as military installations for research on 
tritium. 
Done at Brussels, 21 November 1984. 
Introduction 
The Committee, profoundly disturbed by the evi­
dence of increasing poverty in a European Commu­
nity which had originally set out to accelerate the 
'raising of the standard of living', welcomes the fact 
that the Commission has sought to alert public opin­
ion and decision makers to the current reality of 
poverty in our midst and of the hardships and dan­
gers to democratic society which this entails. 
Whilst approving the proposal in general, the Com­
mittee has set out below in thematic form, rather 
than on an article-by-article basis, its specific views 
concerning the scale, focus and objectives of the 
Commission's programme. 
(i) OJ No C 208, 8. 8. 1984, p. 10. 16. The Committee notes that the proposed tritium 
programme is to be accommodates within the over­
all JRC budget, in which funds have already been 
earmarked for this purpose. 
The Chairman 
of the Economic and Social Committee 
Gerd MUHR 
Comments 
1.1. The Committee stresses the modest spending 
scale of the programme, and considers the budget­
ary cut from approximately 44 million ECU (at cur­
rent real value allowing for inflation), allocated to 
the previous programme (1975 to 1979) to 35 million 
ECU currently proposed, to be regrettable and it 
should be corrected, all the more in view of the 
worsening situation. 
1.2. Given this limited expenditure, plus the on­
going micro-projects approach, the programme of 
'action-research' proposed can only constitute a 
valuable initiative against poverty if it is seen as a 
specific exercise acting as a modest but useful 
supplement to wider official programmes of anti-
poverty measures. Such a wide effort, requiring Opinion on the proposal for a Council Decision on specific action to combat poverty(') 
(85/C 25/06) 
On 10 August 1984 the Council, acting in accordance with Article 198 of the Treaty 
setting up the European Economic Community, asked the Economic and Social Com­
mittee for an opinion on the proposal for a Council Decision on specific action to 
combat poverty. 
The Section for Social Questions was instructed to prepare the Committee's work on 
the matter. The Section adopted its opinion on 8 November 1984 after hearing a report 
by Mr Brian Roycroft (co-rapporteurs being Mr Giacomo Regaldo and Mr Thomas 
Etty). 
At its 221st plenary session (meeting of 21 November 1984) the Economic and Social 
Committee adopted the following opinion unanimously: 
No C 25/12 Official Journal of the European Communities 28. 1. 85 
determined action by member governments, would 
necessarily be concerned with the major variables 
involved in poverty and deprivation, for example: 
unemployment, social security problems, low pay, 
housing problems, etc. One major concern is the 
long-term effect of the replacement of adequately 
paid employment by unemployment, of poorly-re­
warded part-time work, or sporadic or low-paid em­
ployment of various sorts. This has the effect of 
undermining mainstream social security entitle­
ments and causing large-scale and growing depen­
dence on social assistance. 
If the programme of 'action-research' were to be 
seen, not as a supplement to such wider concerted 
efforts, but as a substitute for, or distraction from 
them, then it would be counter-productive. Keeping 
the programme firmly set within the wider context 
of action is therefore essential to its success. 
1.3. In this sense, the Committee considers the title 
of the programme 'specific Community action to 
combat poverty' to be a misnomer which ought to be 
corrected so as to read 'specific measures to assist 
Member States in their social policy in combating, 
reducing and preventing poverty'. This is not to 
neglect the vital role of grass-roots and voluntary 
nongovernmental organizations. 
2.1. With regard to the focus of the programme, if 
it is intended that the allocations listed by the Com­
mission in the Financial Statement (point 5.2 B) 
should be illustrative rather than definitive, then this 
ought to be made clear; otherwise preconceptions 
concerning the relative importance of groups may 
be encouraged. 
2.2. Most population groups liable to poverty are 
covered in the programme's terms of reference, 
though some important groups are excluded (dis­
abled people, carers, the low paid), whilst other sel­
ected groups are left unexplained ('marginal 
groups'). 
The question of whether the focus on 'target groups' 
should be wider (at the risk of becoming nebulous) 
or narrower (at the risk of unjustified exclusion) 
needs more careful consideration. Preferably, the 
emphasis should be on broad coverage, matched by 
a rigorous analysis and explanation of the choice, 
purpose and objectives of the 'action-research' in 
question. 
2.3. Similarly, it is right that the definition of pov­
erty should be concerned with levels of income 
below which a person is unable to participate in the 
activities which are expected and regarded as nor­
mal in that society; and while it is true that many of 
the poor in Europe do have difficulty in affording an adequate diet, we should not seek to equate pov­
erty with starvation, but instead construe it in terms 
of relative prevailing living conditions in a given 
society. Nevertheless, such a definition could be cri­
ticized as too vague. The concept of a specific per­
centage of average incomes in a given society ought 
therefore to be added, as a useful, operational trans­
lation of such a definition. 
2.4. In this connection, and according to the 
above, social and operational approach to defining 
poverty, the Committee welcomes the Commission's 
initiative to work towards achieving comparable sta­
tistical data on poverty in the EC. This could use­
fully include a Community definition of unemploy­
ment. 
3.1. The Committee positively endorses the objec­
tives of the Commission's programme in trying to 
achieve a better awareness of and active response to 
the scale, areas and types of poverty in the EC. (This 
is not to neglect the broader international dimension 
of poverty.) 
3.2. At the same time the Committee stresses that 
more effort is needed in the anti-poverty programme 
to explain why certain groups fall into poverty in the 
first place, especially those groups which constitute 
areas of 'new poverty'. 
To be a member of a particular group within society 
is not in itself a sufficient explanation of poverty. 
For example, it is the case that unemployed people, 
or single parents, are very frequently poor. It is 
necessary to ask the question: why does the status of 
being unemployed, or being a single parent, tend to 
result in poverty? Why, especially, have the income 
maintenance and other relevant systems failed such 
people, and in particular are likely to fail still 
further the growing new category of long-term un­
employed? 
Answering such questions should be a specific ob­
jective of the programme, in relation to each of the 
groups concerned. Answers are likely to be multi­
variate. For single parents, as an example, it would 
be necessary to look at the levels and conditions of 
entitlement to social security benefits (l), including 
problems caused by 'aggregation' rules; problems of 
low pay; part-time working; child care facilities; sex 
discrimination within the labour market — all of 
which illustrate the degree of overlap of a wide 
range of policy concerns with the question of pover­
ty. 
(') See ESC opinion on 'General aspects of social security 
structures and problems in the individual Member 
States'. 
28. 1. 85 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 25/13 
It follows that the Commission should explain what 
has been learnt from past pilot schemes and can be 
learnt from the targeting of new groups in order to 
remedy and prevent particular categories of poverty 
from occuring. 
3.3. In turn, an objective and comprehensive pro­
gramme attempting to define, quantify, situate, com­
bat and prevent poverty as such must also consider 
the increasing disparities in some EC countries be­
tween richer and poorer sections of society, and how 
this trend, contrary to Article 2 of the Treaty, might 
be remedied. 
The research exercise of the programme should 
therefore incorporate the statistical monitoring of 
income and wealth distribution within society, in 
such a way as to provide a good insight into the real 
disposable resources in the various income cate­
gories in the Member States. For it is not meaningful 
to examine poverty in isolation from the distribution 
of current resources and well-being elsewhere along 
the income scale in a given society. 
3.4. At the same time, the Committee emphasizes 
that the Commission programme ought to indicate 
more precisely how the 'research' proposed can 
make the transition from the monitoring of, to spe­
cific 'action' against poverty. 
Strenuous efforts are clearly needed to get on with 
the job of actively combating poverty, of motivating 
governmental action, and of linking up the EC in­
itiative with social policy actions in related fields 
such as local employment initiatives('), working 
(') See ESC opinion on local employment initiatives' (OJ 
No C 206, 6. 8. 1984). 
Done at Brussels, 21 November 1984. time and the social integration of 'outcast' groups 
and of persons discriminated against, whose sense 
of value and dignity has been eroded by official lack 
of interest. 
Whilst common factors and policy overlaps apply in 
activating such a strategy to combat poverty, varia­
ble and diverse actions are also involved, by virtue 
of the multi-variate groups and areas in question. 
It is essential in this respect to ensure the participa­
tion of people actively involved at the 'sharp end' in 
combating poverty, and to project their personal 
views, experiences and proposals towards the rele­
vant decision makers. Proper back-up and support 
by the social partners is also important. 
3.5. It is in the above context of bringing together 
and of representing anti-poverty activists and opin­
ion formers that the proposal for a transnational 
'clearing house' ought to be stated more clearly. 
The Committee stresses that the role of such a 'clear­
ing house', whilst obviously having to collect and 
disseminate information and views, should not de­
generate into a separate bureaucratic institution or 
'glorified liberary', but instead serve as a launching 
pad for active economic and social measures to 
combat poverty and to sensitize and stimulate urget 
official responses at local, national and Community 
levels to this most unacceptable contemporary pro­
blem. 
4. The Committee would finally draw attention to 
Article 6 of the Commission proposal, which ought 
to be corrected so that the 1987 interim report on the 
programme shall be submitted not only to the Coun­
cil and the European Parliament, but also to the 
Committee. 
The Chairman 
of the Economic and Social Committee 
Gerd MUHR