Debate: A need for a dedicated budget to turn the Child Guarantee into reality - an urgency in times of energy and food crisis
Date: TUESDAY, 13 DECEMBER 2022
Speaker: Nicolas Schmit
Language: EN

Today, at least four million Ukrainian children are prevented from having a normal life by this criminal war. Thousands have been killed or injured. Millions have either been displaced internally or had to cross the borders. And thousands have been abducted against all international rules and against all the principles of a civilised world. Offering Ukrainian child refugees housing, social services and education has to be considered as combating child poverty and child exclusion. This war has not only caused destruction and a humanitarian crisis. Together with the energy crisis, it has also fuelled spiralling energy and food prices, leading to increased costs of living.  In quarter two of 2022, real household income contracted for the first time since the COVID-19 shock. High food and energy prices made access, in particular, to healthy meals and adequate housing more difficult. Families are forced to make impossible choices between feeding their children and paying their bills.  Let’s recall that the share of children at risk of poverty and social exclusion in 2021 remained at 24.4% – higher than that of the general population, at 21.7%. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are most at risk. We cannot allow the current crisis to result in a new cycle of child poverty. To support vulnerable children in these difficult times, we need to protect household incomes, providing a consistent response, which should also include adequate wage policies and minimum income schemes.  I want to underline the commitments taken by the Member States and the EU institutions at the Porto summit. We have jointly set three ambitious targets to be achieved by 2030, and among them are reducing the number of poor people or people at risk of poverty by 15 million, and at least 5 million should be children.  I’m glad that all Member States committed to their national targets, and most of these national targets include specific commitments to reduce child poverty. What we jointly need to do now is to mobilise to achieve these targets by helping vulnerable families to break the cycle of disadvantage. So far, 18 Member States have submitted to the Commission their national action plans implementing the European Child Guarantee. The level of ambition of the plans varies depending on the starting point of a given country.  The Commission keeps urging the national Child Guarantee Coordinators to speed up the submission of the action plans. We also monitor very closely the implementation of the adopted plans and hold regular meetings with the national Child Guarantee Coordinators. Progress in implementing the child guarantee will also be regularly monitored through the relevant social scoreboard indicators in the context of the European Semester.  EU funds provide an important contribution towards the implementation of the European Child Guarantee. In particular, the European Social Fund Plus already provides funding dedicated to supporting children and young people.  As this Parliament will know, the ESF+ already includes an obligation that all Member States should programme an appropriate amount of their resources of the ESF+ strand under shared management for the implementation of the Child Guarantee for activities addressing child poverty. For these Member States with a significant problem, there is a minimum allocation of 5%.  I well recall the important role played by Parliament to ensure the prevalence of the Child Guarantee during the ESF negotiations. I am pleased to see that in a great majority of the Member States, the 5% threshold to combat child poverty has been exceeded. Overall, Member States are planning to programme almost EUR 6.1 billion under the ESF+ for measures directly addressing child poverty. With national contributions included, this amounts to almost EUR 8.9 billion. Of course, Member States can also provide indirect support to help children in poverty through social integration measures. You can count on the Commission to monitor that the budget allocated to the Child Guarantee under the ESF+ is used to its full extent. The European Regional Development Fund can also finance measures to promote social inclusion and combat poverty. Here, the allocation is to be spent on inclusive growth, amounting to EUR 24.2 billion. And together with Commissioner Ferreira, we want to develop real synergies to allocate a maximum of funding also to combat child poverty. And I can tell you, we are focusing especially on Roma children, a majority of whom are suffering from incredible poverty. Under the Recovery and Resilience Facility, most Member States plan infrastructure investments in education at all stages, starting with early childhood and care. And here also, EUR 7.6 billion are tagged for early childhood education and care. Obviously, EU funding is not sufficient; Member States, too, should mobilise their national budgets.  This is a social investment that will pay off, benefiting our young generation and in the longer run our economies and societies. And the Commission stays committed to combating child poverty and is ready to support the Member States in this task.