Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee – Evaluating the impact of public policies in the medium and long term through intergenerational budgeting (own-initiative opinion)
Date: 2025-09-18
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: EU Cohesion Policy funds, European social policy, conflict of generations, distribution of EU funding, drawing up of the EU budget, elderly person, population policy, public policy, young person, youth policy








C_202600012EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2026/12


16.1.2026






Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee
Evaluating the impact of public policies in the medium and long term through intergenerational budgeting
(own-initiative opinion)
(C/2026/12)


Rapporteur: 
Nicoletta MERLO






Advisor


Luciano MONTI (for the Group II rapporteur)




Plenary Assembly decision


23.1.2025




Legal basis


Rule 52(2) of the Rules of Procedure




Section responsible


Employment, Social Affairs and Citizenship




Adopted in section


3.9.2025




Adopted at plenary session


18.9.2025




Plenary session No


599




Outcome of vote
(for/against/abstentions)


99/0/0




1.   Conclusions and recommendations









1.1.


This own-initiative opinion aims to promote the introduction of ‘intergenerational budgeting’ by encouraging an approach that would foster better awareness of how resources are allocated by EU, national and local financial programming to the different generations and in particular to young people. This should be done while fully respecting Member States’ competences and budgetary autonomy.












1.2.


The EESC calls on the Member States to systematically consider the intergenerational dimension in their budgets, for instance by applying the Youth Check to all relevant national budgetary items or through other methods, clearly identifying generational and potentially generational measures. This tool would help better align public spending with the principles of intergenerational fairness, while also promoting a generational exchange between young people and older people. Such an approach should also promote youth co-participation, especially for the detection of potentially generational measures.












1.3.


Once the key generational priorities and funding streams have been identified, the EESC encourages giving consideration to activating structured and meaningful youth participation as an integral part of budgetary planning and monitoring. In this regard, the Council has invited the European Commission, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, to ensure that young people’s voices are taken into account at all levels, with the introduction of the Youth Test/Youth Check at EU level, a youth impact assessment or other similar youth mainstreaming instruments (1).












1.4.


The EESC believes that, in order to promote intergenerational equity, Member States’ budgets should ensure a fair equilibrium between family and child per capita expenditure and old age per capita spending. For this reason, the EESC calls for consideration to be given to introducing a significant threshold for ‘families and children’ category expenditure within social protection budgets, ensuring that a set share of public resources is earmarked for ‘protection for youth’.












1.5.


The EESC highlights the importance of ensuring the long-term sustainability of social protection systems by conducting quantitative assessments on intergenerational fairness.












1.6.


In accordance with Article 322(1)(a) (2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, which stipulates that the Parliament and the Council, acting through the ordinary legislative procedure and after consulting the Court of Auditors, are to adopt the financial rules that govern the procedure for establishing and implementing the budget and for presenting and auditing accounts, the EESC suggests that national and regional level intergenerational budgeting be introduced as part of the conditionality for the new 2028-2034 cohesion policy programming cycle and in the implementation of the new ‘national and regional partnership plans’. This would ensure long-term fiscal sustainability and strengthen the intergenerational equity of public spending.




2.   Context









2.1.


Economic, social and environmental crises affect different segments of the population asymmetrically, with particularly severe effects on the younger generations. As emphasised by the Commission (3), young people are among those most affected by economic and social crises, with a potentially lasting impact on their career prospects, well-being and trust in institutions. Almost half of young people reported emotional or psychosocial problems in the past year, with global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical crises contributing to heightened stress levels (4).












2.2.


The phenomenon of demographic ageing in Europe increasingly raises the issue of intergenerational equity, particularly as the steadily declining number of individuals under 30 face the risk of their interests being insufficiently represented in Member States’ policy-making. This risk is heightened by two factors: first, the percentage of the population in this age group is steadily decreasing; second, more than half of those under 30, specifically those under 18, do not represent an electoral constituency. While in the year 2000 individuals under 20 accounted for 23,7 % of the population, it is estimated that by 2030 they will make up only 19,2 %. This proportion is expected to decline steadily to 18,3 % in 2050, and to 17,8 % by 2100 (5). A comparable decline can also be seen within the 15-24 age group, whose share of the population is projected to fall from 10,5 % in 2020 to 9,5 % in 2050 (6), underscoring a broader demographic shift towards an ageing population. Conversely, the proportion of those over 65, which stood at 16,9 % in 2000, is projected to reach 26,1 % by the end of this decade.












2.3.


Demographic developments impact labour markets, pension and social protection systems and Europe’s geopolitical position in the world (7). Labour shortages exist in various sectors and occupations and will likely increase with the projected decline in the working age population from 265 million in 2022 to 258 million by 2030 (8). As mentioned in the EESC opinion SOC/796, the old-age dependency ratio (i.e. the number of people aged 65+ per 100 people aged 15-64) is changing rapidly: this ratio is projected to increase from 33.3:100 in 2023 to 45.5:100 in 2040, and to 59.7:100 in 2100, which means that 59.7 retired people will depend on 100 people of working age.












2.4.


The data clearly show a need to ensure the sustainability of welfare systems: policies on pensions, health and social welfare should be structured in such a way as to avoid imbalances between generations. With Europe’s ageing population, if current policies do not provide for adequate investments in birth rates, youth employment and lifelong learning, the risk is that future generations will not have access to an appropriate level of social protection.




3.   General comments









3.1.


Political and budgetary choices influence the distribution of public resources. The Member States must repay the funding received through the RRF, while also supporting investments planned under the new ReARM plan, and this makes it essential to introduce measures and guarantees that prevent the burden from falling disproportionately on the younger generation.












3.2.


As the Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated in her Mission Letter to the Commissioner for Intergenerational Fairness, Youth Culture and Sports, ‘the EU Commission must ensure that decisions taken today do not harm to future generations and ensure that the interests of present and future generations are respected throughout EU policy and law making’. Solidarity and intergenerational equity in access to resources should therefore be promoted. The Commissioner was tasked with developing a comprehensive Strategy on Intergenerational Fairness, supported by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), which has recently launched an EU Policy Lab to facilitate the strategy’s design (9). This initiative aims to avoid a ‘compartmentalised work’ approach by involving all DGs and envisages the collaboration and involvement of the European Youth Forum, the OECD, Age Platform Europe and other external stakeholders to co-create the strategy.












3.3.


As stated in the EESC opinion SOC/759 (10), the EU should encourage the Member States to strengthen measures that address intergenerational unfairness and promote social justice, ensuring strong coordination for policy coherence. Additionally, the Member States should reinforce cross-sectoral policies benefiting young people and reducing generational divides. Several pilot schemes have been conducted in this field in the EU, resulting in scientific impact studies, monitoring studies (11) and even ex post evaluations on draft laws for young people. Two EU countries – Austria and Germany (12) – have carried out ex ante (Jugend-Check) and ex post evaluations that are particularly interesting, while the youth check is particularly developed in Italy at local level (Valutazione di Impatto Generazionale (13)).












3.4.


The generational impact assessment of medium- and long-term policies should foster mechanisms for youth participation in public decision-making, ensuring that policies are formulated with the needs and expectations of the new generations in mind. Initiatives such as the Youth Test (14), introduced in some countries and promoted at EU level by the EESC, aim precisely at assessing the effect of new legislation on young people in advance, making policies more inclusive and future-oriented. Recent Council Conclusions (15) invited the Commission, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, to ‘ensure that young people’s voices are taken into account at all levels, with the introduction of the youth check at EU level, a youth impact assessment or other similar youth mainstreaming instruments’. In this regard, the Commission has also embarked on a path of engaging younger generations through the EU Youth Dialogue (16) and Youth Policy Dialogues initiatives.












3.5.


Conditionality regarding certain cross-cutting and thematic enabling conditions has already been adopted in the current 2021-2027 European cohesion policy cycle. Regulation (EU) 2021/1060, which lays down common provisions for the European Regional Development Fund, the ESF+, the Cohesion Fund, and other funds – and specifically Recital 21, Article 15 and, in particular, Annex III and IV thereof – sets out the current thematic enabling conditions required for the effective and efficient use of these funds. These include the presence of a national strategic framework for gender equality (enabling condition 4.2), as well as strategic policy frameworks in areas such as education and training, health, long-term care, and social inclusion (enabling conditions 4.3, 4.4 and 4.6). These enabling conditions apply to the current 2021-2027 programming period and form the baseline requirements for accessing EU cohesion funding under the existing regulatory framework (17). Conditionality is also required within the RRF (18).




4.   Specific examples of evaluation mechanisms









4.1.


The Commission’s discussion paper ‘The Intergenerational Dimension of Fiscal Sustainability’ provides a framework for assessing lifetime net tax contributions across generations by explaining how generational accounting works. It reveals that current EU fiscal policies place a disproportionate burden on future generations, with age-related spending (pensions, healthcare) projected to reach 20 % of GDP. The study adopts two key metrics: the intertemporal budget gap (IBG), which measures the adjustment needed to stabilise public debt over 50 years; and the Auerbach-Gokhale-Kotlikoff (AGK) indicator, which quantifies the fiscal imbalance between current and future generations. This analysis shows that future European newborns could face tax rates 2-3 times higher than current retirees, even if with the impact of pension reforms the impact of generational imbalances is significantly lower. The methodology described in this discussion paper is based on the allocation of government spending across different age cohorts, using statistical data and economic modelling. Public expenditure is classified into functional categories according to the statistics on income and living conditions (SILC) and classification of the functions of government (COFOG) (19) framework, which ensures comparability across countries. To estimate the distribution of public spending by age, the report constructs age profiles for different spending categories, relying on administrative data, national accounts and projections from the Commission. The methodology involves identifying the primary recipients of public services, modelling spending patterns over the life-cycle and applying these distributions to demographic data (i.e. education spending is assigned primarily to younger age groups, healthcare costs increase with age and pension expenditures are allocated to older cohorts).












4.2.


The COFOG classification splits government spending into ten divisions from ‘01 - general public services’ to ‘10 - social protection’ (20). In the manual, the ‘Assigning an appropriate function: case studies section analyses “Case 4 – Protection of Youth”. This case concerns the classification of government expenditure aimed at protecting and supporting young people. Within the COFOG framework, this expenditure is typically assigned to “Function 10.4 - Family and Children”, which falls under “Division 10 - Social Protection”. This category includes interventions such as child protection services, family allowances and youth assistance programmes. In the EU, social protection expenditure has remained relatively stable over the past decade, standing at around 19-20 % of GDP. A large majority of this spending is allocated to the COFOG expenditure category “old age” (approximately 10-11 % of GDP), while only a much smaller share (between 1,7 % and 2 %) is devoted to the category “families and children” (21). Over the years, the ratio between spending on old age and that on families and children has consistently hovered around 10 to 1. This is clearly influenced by population ageing and, consequently, pensions, which shift the structure of the welfare system away from investment in family policies and support for newborns.












4.3.


Another interesting experience in evaluating public policies is the Youth Check (22), which serves as a tool for ensuring that policies’ impact on young people is systematically factored in. This instrument allows for the labelling of intervention measures targeted at young people (generational measures), those that are potentially youth-oriented, and those that are ‘anti-generational’ (23). There are already some regional and local (24) experiences that show how generational and potentially generational measures for young people have been implemented through budget laws, highlighting the practical applicability of this classification in their formulation. In 2023, Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region experimented with generational impact assessment as part of its Safe-ER project, applying it to the 2021-2027 regional programmes co-financed by the ESF+ and the European Regional Development Fund (25). This was the first attempt to use generational impact assessment systematically at the regional and EU level, helping to establish a model that can be exported to other contexts. At local level, the Municipality of Parma was the first to apply generational impact assessment to its 2023-2025 ‘single programming document’ (DUP), accurately identifying the generational and potentially generational measures present in its planning documents. The administration has initiated a process of mapping public measures, classifying them according to the categories established by COVIGE (the Committee for the Assessment of the Generational Impact of Public Policies) (26) and preparing the first Annual Report on Generational Impact Assessment, which presented the first evidence from the monitoring of generational and potentially generational measures.












4.4.


In order to identify age-related inequalities in public policy, the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) developed a methodology. This approach involves comparing different policy outcomes between different age groups and calculating an ‘ageing gap’. This would allow policy-makers to identify disparities and evaluate the inclusiveness of policies (27).












4.5.


The minimum threshold approach has been intensively adopted by the RRF, with the aim of promoting and supporting the dual green and digital transition, thanks to the introduction of targets and labelling. For the green transition, the Member States were required to allocate no less than 37 % of the resources received for this purpose, while for digitalisation, the minimum requirement was 20 % (28). To demonstrate compliance with these two targets, a labelling (or tagging or flagging) system was introduced, following the approach already tested in the ESF+, which requires national or regional investment plans to identify specific measures that contribute to achieving these targets.




5.   Specific comments









5.1.


In its opinion SOC/800 (29), the EESC stressed that ‘[i]ntergenerational solidarity is crucial to overcoming age discrimination against old and young people and inequalities between generations in the context of the current demographic development. It is essential to design social policies and services that take a life-cycle approach and that are fair, accessible and available for all age groups. Younger and older people often experience discrimination simply because of their age’.












5.2.


In the same opinion, the EESC calls for intergenerational solidarity to be established as one of the objectives under the European Social Fund in the 2028-2034 MFF and its implementing regulations.












5.3.


Following these principles, and in order to facilitate public policies that ensure a balanced approach between different generations and take into account intergenerational fairness in the medium and long term, this own-initiative opinion aims to promote the introduction of ‘intergenerational budgeting’ by encouraging an approach that would foster better awareness of how resources are allocated by EU, national and local financial programming to the different generations. This should be done fully respecting Member States’ competences and budgetary autonomy. Such an approach should also promote youth co-participation, especially for the detection of potentially generational measures, using current tools already tested in some Member States, such as the Youth Test or the Youth Check.












5.4.


This intergenerational budgeting approach would enable policy-makers and the community to better understand who are the target beneficiaries of the resources allocated by public budgets and, through mitigation measures, would thus enable possible imbalances towards one generation to be corrected and make it possible to ensure that public resources are spent in the most efficient and balanced way possible. In this way, it can contribute to ensuring a real improvement in the allocation and targeting of investments in all areas from an intergenerational perspective, especially in the social, employment, training and health fields.












5.5.


Specifically, the EESC proposes that a mechanism similar to that applied in the case of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans and ESF+ be applied to EU cohesion policies to ensure adequate future resources for both younger generations (young people and children) and older generations (those over 65) by precisely identifying expenditure items and measures that should help achieve intergenerational equity.






Brussels, 18 September 2025.


The President


of the European Economic and Social Committee

Oliver RÖPKE
               





(1)  
            https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-8876-2025-REV-1/en/pdf.

(2)  
            
OJ C 202, 7.6.2016, p. 187.

(3)  
            COM(2020) 276 final.

(4)  
            https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2797/17.

(5)  
            https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/proj_23ndbi__custom_16194651/default/table?lang=en.

(6)  
            https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=908&type=Probabilistic%20Projections&category=Pop%20Percentages&subcategory=


Age%2015-24.

(7)  
            OJ C, C/2024/6867, 28.11.2024, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2024/6867/oj.

(8)  
            https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/it/ip_23_3704.

(9)  European Commission, 'Paving the way for an EU Intergenerational Fairness Strategy', 2025.

(10)  
            
OJ C 293, 18.8.2023, p. 68.

(11)  See Martinelli and L. Monti, Misurare l'impatto generazionale delle politiche pubbliche: una sfida, un metodo, in Amministrazione in Cammino, 29.03.21; L. Monti, La valutazione di impatto generazionale delle politiche pubbliche: dalle linee guida del COVIGE al possibile Youth-check in Italia, in Amministrazione in Cammino, 30 December 2022.

(12)  Cioffi C., Pierattini S., ‘
            Contrastare il divario generazionale attraverso la valutazione delle politiche pubbliche rivolte ai giovani
            ’ [Bridging the generational gap through the evaluation of youth policies], Amministrazione in Cammino, 2023.

(13)  Cioffi C. Monti L, ‘Rethinking policies for the younger generation in the era of recovery and resilience: The Italian Youth-check challenge’, Amministrazione in Cammino, Forum, Sept. 2024; Monti L ‘Legiferare meglio: la valutazione di impatto generazionale del Documento Unico di Programmazione.’
            Rivista Di Diritto Ed Economia Dei Comuni, vol. 2/2024, p. 53-67.

(14)  
            
OJ C 486, 21.12.2022, p. 46.

(15)  
            OJ C, C/2025/2977, 23.5.2025, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/2977/oj.

(16)  
            https://youth.europa.eu/strategy/euyouthdialogue_en.

(17)  
            
OJ L 231, 30.6.2021, p. 159.

(18)  Regulation (EU) 2021/241 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 February 2021 establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility, Recital 71 (OJ L 57, 18.2.2021, p. 17).

(19)  The COFOG classification (Classification of the Functions of Government) is a standardised system adopted by EU Member States to categorise public expenditures according to their purpose.

(20)  Table 3: COFOG classification structure. P. 37. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3859598/10142242/KS-GQ-19-010-EN-N.pdf/ed64a194-81db-112b-074b-b7a9eb946c32?t=1569418084000.

(21)  
            https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Government_expenditure_on_social_protection.

(22)  
            https://www.youthforum.org/news/european-commission-commits-to-a-youth-check.

(23)  
            
OJ C 293, 18.8.2023, p. 68.

(24)  Monti L., Claudia Cioffi C. ‘Rethinking Policies for the Younger Generation in the Era of Recovery and Resilience: The Italian Youth-Check Challenge.’
            Amministrazione in Cammino, September 2024.

(25)  
            https://www.giovazoom.emr.it/it/fairer/eventi/partecipazione/youth-check-valutazione-impatto-emilia-romagna-europa-r2b-25-giugno.

(26)  
            https://www.politichegiovanili.gov.it/comunicazione/news/2022/6/linneguidaimpattogen/.

(27)  UNECE. ‘Age-Sensitive Analysis and Age-Responsive Policy Formulation to Advance Mainstreaming Ageing in Public Policies’, 2023.

(28)  Regulation (EU) 2021/241 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 February 2021 establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility, Article 16 (OJ L 57, 18.2.2021, p. 17).

(29)  
            OJ C, C/2024/6869, 28.11.2024, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2024/6869/oj.


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2026/12/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)