REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION Report from the Commission on the mid-term evaluation of the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI)
Date: 2019-05-20
Institutions: Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, European Commission
Subjects: EU programme, anti-discriminatory measure, employment aid, fight against unemployment, gender equality, humanisation of work, microloan, poverty, social change, social integration

EN 

  EN 

   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 20.5.2019  COM(2019) 234 final  REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION Report from the Commission on the mid-term evaluation of the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) {SWD(2019) 182 final}  
 
 
European Programme for Employment and Social Innovation mid-term evaluation 

Report from the Commission 

1.   Background to EaSI 

The  European  Union  Programme  for  Employment  and  Social  Innovation  (EaSI)1  — 
implemented under direct and indirect management modes — is designed to promote a high 
level of quality and sustainable employment, guarantee adequate and decent social protection, 
combat social exclusion and poverty, and improve working conditions in the Member States 
and  in  other  participating  countries  (the  EFTA/EEA2,  EU  candidate  and  pre-candidate 
countries).  

The  total  financial  envelope  established  in  the  EaSI  Regulation  for  2014  to  2020  is 
EUR 919 469,000. The programme has three axes: 

■  PROGRESS  supports  policy  making  and  implementation  by:  producing  policy 
evidence,  organising  information-sharing  and  mutual  learning  activities,  creating 
better  conditions  for  social  innovation,  and  helping  to  build  capacity  for  EU  and 
national organisations. 

■  EURES  provides  information  and  services  for  jobseekers  and  employers  and  runs 
targeted mobility schemes to enable people to find work in other parts of the EU. 

■  Microfinance/Social  Entrepreneurship  supports  access  to  microcredit  for  vulnerable 
persons  and  micro-enterprises,  and  institutional  capacity  building  for  microcredit 
providers. 

Cross-cutting  aims  —  such  as  gender  equality,  non-discrimination,  and  combating  poverty 
and social exclusion — are supported at every level. 

2.  Scope of the mid-term evaluation 

The mid-term evaluation assessed — under the Article 13(1) of the EaSI Regulation and the 
Better Regulation Guidelines3 — progress made in achieving the programme’s objectives and 
its continuing relevance, its efficiency and use of resources, its policy coherence in relation to 
other  instruments  and  its  EU  added  value.  EaSI’s  governance  was  also  examined.  The 
evaluation  aimed  to  recommend  adjustments  to  the  way  the  programme  is  run  in  order  to 
improve performance in future implementation and to contribute to preparation for the post-
2020 period. 

The evaluation covered EaSI activities from January 2014 to December 2016. It covered the 
programme’s  full  geographical  scope  and  relevant  stakeholders  —  in  particular,  the  EaSI 
Committee,  policy  committees,  social  partners,  national  authorities  and  bodies,  and  key  EU 
civil society organisations. 

The  research  combined  six  main  methods  to  answer  the  evaluation  questions:  analysis  of 
secondary data, an open public consultation, semi-structured interviews, a focus group, case 
studies and a survey of beneficiaries. 

1 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2013:347:0238:0252:EN:PDF. 
2 Iceland participates in all three axes, Norway participates only in PROGRESS and EURES, Lichtenstein does 
not participate in EaSI at all, and Switzerland participates only in EURES and only at its own expense. 
3 https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/better-regulation-guidelines.pdf. 

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The  mid-term  evaluation  is  presented  as  a  staff  working  document  (SWD),  based  on  the 
outcomes  of  an  external  evaluation  study4  commissioned  by  the  Commission  and  other 
sources  of  evidence  —  in  particular  EaSI  performance  monitoring  reports,  Annual 
Management  Reports  of  the  European  Commission’s  Directorate-General  for  Employment, 
Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL) and other relevant evaluations. 

In compliance with Article 13 of the EaSI Regulation, this report summarises the main results 
of the mid-term evaluation for the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic 
and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, and the public. 

3.  Main results and lessons learned 

The following sections present the conclusions reached on the evaluation’s six main themes: 
relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence, EU added value and programme governance. 

The evaluation has however obvious limitations. Few projects were finished in 2016, which 
limited the data available, while other projects started have not had the time to produce a full 
set  of  outputs  and  impacts.  There  are  also  few  benchmarks  available,  as  there  is  no 
programme  comparable  to  EaSI  in  terms  of  scale  and  coverage.  EaSI’s performance  should 
thus be seen in the context of its role in the wider support system including EU and national 
policy  initiatives.  To  overcome/mitigate  these  limitations,  the  mid-term  evaluation  cross-
checked  multiple  sources  of  evaluative  evidence,  combined  quantitative  and  qualitative 
methods and tools, ensured transparency of data sources and systematically checked findings 
against input from stakeholders. 

One important finding of this exercise was that mid-term, as set out in the EaSI Regulation, 
was too early for the evaluation. Future evaluations should be scheduled to allow more results 
and wider impacts to emerge and support the analysis. 

3.1. Relevance 

EaSI’s relevance was assessed in relation to its general objectives, the specific objectives for 
the three axes and the allocation of resources between them. 

The evaluation confirmed that EaSI’s rationale and its five general objectives are still highly 
relevant, particularly in the evaluation time-frame context of the aftermath of the financial and 
economic crisis — with a welcome but slow recovery — and trends likely to impact the EU 
for years to come. For instance, with a large influx of refugees and immigrants to EU Member 
States,  the  number  of  vulnerable  people  has  drastically  increased,  making  their  successful 
integration one of the highest EU priorities. 

Despite  the  limited  data  sets  available,  progress  is  being  made  towards  delivering  on  all 
general and specific EaSI objectives. EaSI helped to increase awareness of EU policy inputs 
into  social  inclusion  and  poverty  reduction,  to  improve  perceptions  of  the  cross-border 
potential for employment, to rapidly test and implement innovative measures, and to increase 
access  to  microfinance  loans  and  support  for  entrepreneurship.  EaSI  also  facilitated  policy 
change  through  comparative  research,  exchanges  and  capacity-building,  thereby  helping 
different  stakeholders  to  influence  the  formulation  and  implementation  of  socioeconomic 
policies in the programme’s participating countries. 

4  The  external  support  study  carried  out  by  ICF Consulting  was  coordinated  by the  Commission’s Directorate-General  for 
Employment,  Inclusion  and  Social  Affairs,  under  the  direct  monitoring  and  supervision  of  an  Interservice  Steering  Group 
(ISSG) comprising other Commission departments. 

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Still, EaSI’s relevance and impacts could be further improved. Analytical tools, dissemination 
events  and  innovative  projects  should  focus  more  on  gender  issues,  youth  unemployment, 
inequalities (income, education, skills) and the fight against social exclusion, putting greater 
focus on transferability and the possibility of upscaling social innovations. 

PROGRESS  and  Microfinance/Social  Entrepreneurship  can  play  an  important  role  in  this 
process by prioritising social inclusion activities and access to finance for vulnerable groups, 
i.e. people who are at risk of social and financial exclusion. EURES should continue to fund 
projects targeted at groups with a clear economic need (as is the case with ‘Your first EURES 
job’ and cross-border partnerships). 

The topics of mutual learning activities — e.g. labour market integration measures for young 
people,  asylum  seekers,  refugees  and  long-term  unemployed  people,  future  skills  needs  —  
closely  followed  priorities  set  in  the  Employment  Guidelines  and  the  country-specific 
recommendations  as  part  of  the  European  Semester  cycle  of  economic  coordination5.  The 
European  Semester  was  also  supported  by  other  EaSI-funded  analytical  activities,  in 
particular the Employment and Social Development Report and the Labour Force Survey. In 
its  analytical  activities,  the  programme  should  prioritise  the  exchange  of  good  practices 
between policy-makers across the participating countries through mutual learning, awareness-
raising and dissemination activities. 

Similarly,  disseminating  good  practices  from  different  countries  —  including  social 
experimentation — more widely at operational level creates awareness of innovative practices 
and helps national and local actors to deliver better services and products. So maintaining EU-
level  networks  is  crucial  to  aligning  the  different  policy  agendas  across  different  levels  of 
government and the participating countries. 

In practice, more flexible resource allocation across the three programme axes (instead of the 
current minimum indicative percentages set in the EaSI Regulation) would allow more scope 
for  transferring  budgets  between  them  when  needed.  This  could  particularly  help 
Microfinance/Social  Entrepreneurship  axis,  where  spending  is  demand-driven.  Greater 
flexibility would also boost responsiveness to emerging needs (e.g. new initiatives such as the 
‘European  Solidarity  Corps’6,  ‘New  start  for  social  dialogue’7,  ‘New  skills  agenda  for 
Europe’8 or the European Labour Authority - ELA9). 

3.2. Effectiveness 

The programme’s three axes differ in terms of their effectiveness in generating outcomes and 
achieving  objectives,  and  in  bringing  about  change.  Thus,  PROGRESS  is  most  effective  in 
facilitating  information-sharing,  mutual  learning  and  dialogue,  and  in  developing  and 
disseminating  comparative  and  analytical  knowledge.  One  of  EURES’  more  effective 
activities has been contributing to the development of a transparent labour market in terms of 
demand  and  supply.  Evidence  on  Microfinance/Social  Entrepreneurship  suggests  that  EaSI 
funding  has  increased  the  availability  of  and  access  to  finance  across  the  participating 
countries. 

Financial  intermediaries  have  included  vulnerable  groups  in  their  activities,  but  there  were 
important  discrepancies  between  countries.  In  most  cases,  even,  vulnerable  groups  do  not 

5 See Performance monitoring report 2015-2016. 
6 https://europa.eu/youth/solidarity_en. 
7 http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=88&langId=en&eventsId=1028. 
8 https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1223 
9 https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1414&langId=en 

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represent the majority of final beneficiaries. They still encounter barriers to accessing finance. 
Based  on  the  latest  annual  impact  data  (September  2016),  on  average  35 %  of  micro-
borrowers are women, over 40 % are below 30 years old or above 50 years old, close to 20 % 
are unemployed persons (versus 62 % self-employed/entrepreneur), and 10 % have a migrant 
background  (non-EU).  More  actions  need  to  focus  on  vulnerable  groups,  and  therefore 
explore the possibility of introducing minimum targets for them for the remainder of the EaSI 
programme.  The  financial  instruments  are  demand-driven,  so  it  should  be  possible  to 
implement them with a degree of flexibility to meet market demand. Policy-based incentives 
for the EIF may be considered when designing future instruments to further promote outreach 
to vulnerable groups. 

The evaluation pinpointed a number of ways of improving effectiveness. PROGRESS, while 
maintaining  its  focus  on  policy  themes  relevant  to  and  appreciated  by  stakeholders 
(employment  and  working  conditions),  should  improve  efforts  to  deliver  social  policy 
experimentation by revising its focus on that and its procedures for evaluating and selecting 
projects,  and  by  making  it  easier  to  scale  up  such  projects.  For  EURES,  a  longer 
implementation  period  (2  years  at  a  minimum)  should  be  considered,  combined  with 
measures for reducing the administrative burden of call for proposals management, to enable 
stakeholders  to  properly  develop  projects,  implement  them,  measure  their  effectiveness  and 
ensure  their  sustainability.  For  Microfinance/Social  Entrepreneurship,  greater  focus  on 
vulnerable groups for the second EaSI implementation period is proposed, e.g. setting a target 
for the share/number of vulnerable groups in calls for proposals. 

3.3. Efficiency 

The  evaluation  provides  insights  into  the  match  between  available  means  and  the 
programme’s  objectives.  While  the  financial  means  available  were  sufficient  to  implement 
PROGRESS and EURES activities, the budget for the Microfinance window of the third axis 
was too low. The high uptake of the EaSI guarantee instrument, part of Microfinance/Social 
Entrepreneurship  axis,  put  pressure  on  its  budget  and  resulted  in  full  utilisation  of  the 
Microfinance budget. As Social Entrepreneurship window usually requires much larger loans 
than  Microfinance  window,  there  were  fewer  loans  provided.  This  had  an  impact  on  the 
number of contracts signed10. 

The  third  axis  insufficient  budget  for  the  first  implementation  period  was  remedied  in  the 
meantime by enabling a frontloading of the EaSI budget earmarked for the later years 2017-
2020  and  making  it  available  sooner  in  order  to  meet  the  high  market  demand.  This 
frontloading  was  made  possible  by  means  of  a  guarantee  under  the  European  Fund  for 
Strategic  Investments  (EFSI11).  Indeed,  in  response  to  the  strong  demand  for  the  EaSI 
guarantee  instrument,  the  Microfinance/Social  Entrepreneurship  axis  has  received  in 
December 2017 a EUR 100m top-up from EFSI. This will lead to an increase in the overall 
volume  of  actions  for  the  EaSI  guarantee  instrument  and  allow  the  EIF  to  implement  a 
significant extra number of operations.  

10  While 2014 was spent negotiating the new funding instruments with the European Investment Fund (EIF), by 
September  2016,  33  contracts  had  been  signed  with  microfinance  intermediaries  for  EUR 50.3  million,  which 
resulted in 13.021 microloans for a total of EUR 152.288 million. A leverage factor of 3 times the initial funding 
was achieved. In addition to supporting the microcredit sector, in 2015-2016 EaSI also released the first funding 
for social enterprises and the first 7 contracts with financial intermediaries were signed, for EUR 9 million. 
11EFSI  is  an  initiative  launched  jointly  by  the  EIB  Group  -  European  Investment  Bank  (EIB)  and  EIF  -  the 
European Commission to help overcome the current investment gap in the EU by mobilizing private financing 
for strategic investments. http://www.eif.org/what_we_do/efsi/index.htm  

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The  efficiency  of  PROGRESS  could  be  further  improved  by  introducing  changes  and 
reducing the administrative burden in the project award and implementation stages. Moreover, 
it is not always clear to applicants whether co-financing should be in labour costs or in actual 
cash value. This should be clarified in the calls’ terms of reference. 

Regarding EURES, larger amounts were committed to the allocation for transparency of job 
vacancies  than  originally  planned,  in  order  to  introduce  new  IT;  however,  the  development 
and delivery of services remained relatively stable. 

Overall,  while  the  overall  budget  of  the  programme  is  sufficient,  more  flexible  reallocation 
between the three axes should be enabled in order to minimise discrepancies between planned 
and  actual  commitments,  and  ensure  optimal  transfer  of  budgets  between  the  three  where 
needed. 

3.4. Coherence  

The  overall  perception  of  programme  coherence  gained  through  the  evaluation  is  that  the 
three  predecessor  programmes  were  merged  under  the  EaSI  umbrella  in  response  to  a 
simplification  exercise.  However,  the  evaluation  concludes  that  despite  efforts  to  build 
synergies between the three axes they continue to operate quite independently. All programme 
activities  should  have  a  stronger  focus  on  the  potential  benefits  of  a  coherent  programme 
structure, promoting interdisciplinary solutions to multiple challenges. 

Regarding consistency with other EU programmes, EaSI is most strongly consistent with the 
ESF. PROGRESS and other EU programmes such as the ESF, Erasmus+, Horizon 2020 and 
COSME complement each  other  in terms of  specific  objectives, activities and beneficiaries. 
Complementarity  between  EURES  and  the  European  Territorial  Cooperation  programme 
(Interreg) was also found. Microfinance/Social Entrepreneurship also appears to be consistent 
with other microfinance instruments at EU level. They support either SMEs (like the COSME 
financial  guarantee)  or  companies  up  to  large  caps  (InnovFin),  where  EaSI  supports  only 
microenterprises or social enterprises. They also offer larger financing amounts (InnovFin and 
COSME), and greater variety in terms of financial products (like the InnovFin programme). 
They  focus  only  on  specific  groups  of  beneficiaries 
in  certain  countries,  while 
Microfinance/Social Entrepreneurship addresses all participating countries. 

However,  despite  the  complementarities  between  EaSI  and  other  EU  instruments,  further 
coherence is hampered by the variety of intervention logic and rules governing the funds. The 
co-existence  of  different  rulebooks  (the  Financial  Regulation  for  financial  instruments,  and 
the  Common  Provisions  Regulations  for  structural  funds)  makes  it  challenging  to  tap  into 
complementarities  between  different  funds.  Specific  mechanisms  have  to  be  put  in  place  in 
order  to  facilitate  synergies  between  different  EU  funds,  for  instance  enabling  the  social 
experimentation  tested  under  EaSI  to  be  scaled  up  or  multiplied  with  ESF  funding. 
Streamlining  the  rules  could  help  to  maximise  the  potential  of  such  complementarities  and 
synergies. 

At  national  level,  no  significant  overlap  between  EaSI’s  objectives  and  those  of  national 
instruments/programmes  was  found.  The  stakeholder  consultation,  in  particular,  highlighted 
the consensus on the importance of maintaining each type of instrument at EU level, even if 
minor  overlaps  between  the  instruments  at  EU  and  national  level  were  observed.  These 
overlaps  could  be  overcome  by  further  strengthening  national,  regional  and  local 
tools, 
stakeholders’ 
transferable/comparative knowledge and relevant support for the design and implementation 
of interventions addressing social issues. 

in  EaSI  activities  and  by  providing 

involvement 

them  with 

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3.5. EU added value 

EaSI  produced  demonstrable  EU  added  value  in  terms  of  scope  and  scale,  compared  to 
national and regional support. Should EaSI be discontinued, this would have repercussions in 
many sectors. It would be unlikely that other national or regional funding schemes would be 
able  to  support  policy  experimentation  across  different  participating  countries  and  EU-level 
NGO  networks  as  EaSI  currently  does.  EaSI  is  also  the  most  suitable  vehicle  for  EU-wide 
deliverables such as comparative databases, studies and mutual learning activities that are not 
top priority at other governance levels. 

Furthermore,  there  are  no  other  EU  resources  available  which  are  specifically  designed  for 
cross-border  partnerships,  although 
the  ERDF’s  Interreg  Programmes  can  support 
employment policies in cross-border regions if programmed by the Member States concerned. 
Support  for  the  social  investment  market  would  probably  also  slow  down  without  funding 
from EaSI, leading to less social business across the EU and fewer employment opportunities 
in these sectors. EU support serves as a powerful signal to drive change at national level and 
helps to transfer expertise and know-how between countries. 

The  work  carried  out  under  the  EaSI  programme  extends  beyond  the  management  of  the 
financial  instruments:  it  drives  a  variety  of  measures  to  develop  an  ecosystem  for  social 
finance  markets.  Examples  include  grants  to  develop  both  the  supply  and  demand  side  of 
social  finance,  but  also  non-financial  initiatives  such  as  the  Code  of  Good  Conduct  for 
microcredit  provision,  which  helps  to  raise  standards  in  the  microfinance  sector.  This  is  in 
line with one of the Commission’s goals: that of increasing the use of financial instruments to 
attract private finance and encourage new systemic developments in social finance markets. 

Continuous  efforts  are,  however,  necessary  —  mainly  in  terms  of  communication  on  EaSI 
activities  and  dissemination  of  its  results.  Stakeholders  are  eager  to  receive  further 
information  and  feel  that  through  better  dissemination  they  could  gain  great  benefits, 
particularly  in  terms  of  access  to  finance,  results,  country-specific  examples  and  good 
practices, updated websites and databases, a wider range of languages for communication, and 
content that is more accessible to a broad audience. 

3.6. EaSI governance 

EaSI is coordinated by a unit within the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs 
and Inclusion of the European Commission that is responsible for formulating the scope and 
funding of the programme, and for monitoring and evaluating its progress. The unit is assisted 
in this task by coordinators from the Directorate-General’s operational units and by the EaSI 
Committee, which consists of one representative from each participating country. 

The evaluation examined the role of the EaSI committee, in particular, and concluded that the 
stakeholders’ roles and responsibilities need to be improved, as well as their engagement and 
communication.  The  Committee  members  felt  there  was  a  need  for  more  authority  in 
decision-making and more ownership of the allocation of funds and the programming/topics 
of the calls for proposals12.  

The  evaluation  also  found  that  thematic  working  groups  would  be  useful  to  deepen  EaSI 
Committee members’ knowledge of technical matters. The occasional use of expert guidance 
is also viewed as potentially useful for certain topics. The evaluation also pointed out that the 
Committee members do not have enough information on projects selected and implemented in 

12The  role  of  the  committee  must  comply  with  the  treaties,  the  Financial  Regulation  rules  for  spending 
programmes and the comitology legal framework. 

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their countries, or on projects rejected following the evaluation procedure. More feedback on 
rejected  applications  should  be given to  candidates  to  help them improve their applications. 
More information needs to be shared with the Committee in good time, so that it can be easily 
passed to organisations that may be interested in responding to calls for proposals. 

Similarly, more cooperation with other committees to exchange information and more regular 
discussions between the EaSI Committee and the Commission are seen as necessary. 

4.  General conclusion 

The  mid-term  evaluation  highlighted  a  number  of  ways  to  improve  EaSI’s  implementation 
before  the  end  of  the  current  Multiannual  Financial  Framework  (MFF),  especially  through 
enhanced  internal  budgetary  flexibility,  targeting  groups  in  need  of  specific  support, 
simplifying  procedures,  improving  internal  coherence  and  linking  EaSI  with  other  funds.  In 
particular,  improved  streamlining  of  funding  could  have  a  tangible  impact  on  EaSI’s 
relevance, efficiency, coherence, and effectiveness and EU value added. This could be done in 
2017-2020, through appropriate linkages or new mechanisms linking the different EU funds. 

After 2020, an ‘umbrella fund’ called European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) gathering together 
all funds managed by DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion — including EaSI13 — 
will  provide  one  easy-to-use  interface  with  beneficiaries,  reduce  fragmentation  and  enhance 
synergies  between  funds, 
the  conditions  for  more  effective  policy 
implementation and EU value added. 

thus  creating 

13 The mid-term evaluation highlighted the need to improve the programme’s internal and  coherence. Under the 
ESF+,  a  better  adequacy  between  the  objectives  of  the  EaSI  strand  and  its  funding  will  be  achieved.  If  the 
objectives and types of actions funded under the current PROGRESS axis will remain unchanged, the financial 
instruments implemented under the current EaSI’ third axis will be transferred to InvestEU programme that will 
bring together the multitude of EU financial instruments currently available to support investment in the EU and 
the activities related to the EURES mobility portal will be transferred to the European Labour Authority (ELA). 
The  directly  managed  activities  (non-lending  activities  and  support  to  job  mobility)  will  be  kept  under  the 
ESF+/EaSI strand.  

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