WRITTEN QUESTION E-3149/02

by Ilda Figueiredo (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(4 November 2002)

Subject: Community programme to combat poverty and social exclusion

The Community programme to combat poverty and social exclusion provides for a network of national monitoring centres to back up the statistical mechanism and supply more detailed information on poverty and social exclusion.

Moreover, the European Parliament's resolution of 11 June 2002 on social inclusion calls on the Commission to launch an in-depth study of the extent of economic independence or autonomy of women in the European Union, especially those with family responsibilities.

Given the above, will the Commission answer the following:

1. What experience is available on the operation of the national monitoring centres?

2. How much progress has been made on the study of the extent of economic independence or autonomy of women in the European Union?

3. Could it provide a list of the projects submitted under this Community programme, specifying which one have been approved?

Answer given by Ms Diamantopoulou on behalf of the Commission

(18 December 2002)

1. In promoting the Community action programme against social exclusion during 2002, the Commission has taken into account the involvement of national observatories or similar recognised bodies. In this first year of the programme, the Commission launched an exchange programme to encourage the exchange of learning and best practice (VP/2002/010) and specifically included in the guidelines for the programme reference to exchanges between national observatories or other similar recognised bodies. Several of the 65 applications that have just been selected to participate in this exchange programme involve such bodies. The Commission is also giving thought to how such bodies might be further involved in the context of the social inclusion process. One possibility that will be discussed in the context of work programme for the Community action programme for 2003 is to undertake a study on the identification of national and regional observatories and similar bodies in Member States and their specific areas of competence. This is necessary to give a more complete picture of the range and role of such bodies.

2. The Commission is aware of the importance of looking at data on gender in the field of poverty and social exclusion. It plans to investigate the issues in this connection in more depth both in the programme to combat poverty and social exclusion and with the Social Protection Committee Indicators Subgroup, as more weight should be given to this aspect in the indicators. Finally, the Commission would like to draw the Honourable Member's attention to the recent study Labour market transitions in the context of social exclusion available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/news/2002/nov/labmarket_trans_en.html, and to Eurostat's recent publication: The life of women and men in Europe: a statistical portrait, which gives a statistical description of men and women at different points of their lives.

3. During the first year of the programme's implementation, special attention has been devoted to developing transnational exchange of information and best practice. Implementation of the exchange programme was staggered to allow proposals to focus on the planning and preparation phase. The initial phase, which will be fully operational by the end of 2002, seeks to support promoters' efforts to form solid partnerships, establish links with the policy shaping process and ensure wide dissemination of the projects' results. In the project selection phase, priority was given to proposals addressing problems arising in the context of the national action plans and the Joint Report on Social Inclusion. The complete list of projects presented and that of the projects recommended for support

will be published on the Employment and Social Affairs DG website in the coming weeks. A second phase, to commence in 2003, will support the most deserving projects developed during phase one, following a restricted call for proposals.