Debate: International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
Date: TUESDAY, 17 OCTOBER 2023
Speaker: Nicolas Schmit
Language: EN

The world is going, through violent times, with a lot of crises, wars, armed conflicts and terrorist attacks. They cause death, destruction and deep poverty. They have a detrimental impact on poverty reduction. Moreover, the impact of the COVID—19 pandemic reversed three decades of steady progress, with the number of people living in extreme poverty in the world increasing for the first time in a generation. We were successful at mitigating the impact from COVID—19 in the EU, thanks to our strong national social safety nets and the common European response to the pandemic, including notably through SURE. However, as many as 670 million people – 8.4% of the world population – were still living in extreme poverty globally by the end of 2022. Improving the living and working conditions of the most vulnerable across the world remains a major global challenge. While our circumstances are very different to other areas of the world, there is still work to do to eradicate poverty in the EU. I just want to recall that the number one priority of the Sustainable Development Goals is no poverty – poverty in all its forms everywhere. Unfortunately, this promise is in peril. In 2022, more than one in five people remain at risk of poverty and exclusion in the EU – 21.6%. Child poverty is actually higher than for the general population, with nearly one child in four impacted by poverty or by the risk of poverty – nearly 25%. The number of homeless people is on the rise. This year, he International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, calls for universal access to decent work and social protection, and to emphasise that decent work must empower people, provide fair wages and safe working conditions. These objectives echo two priorities of this Commission that President von der Leyen recalled in her state of the Union speech – decent jobs and ensuring that no one is left behind. These are also two strands of the European Pillar of Social Rights, which has remained the common compass of the EU institutions and Member States in the employment and social policy areas throughout these challenging years. This is also our contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The Social Action Plan has turned the principles of the pillar into concrete actions, and we set ambitious targets by 2030 in the action plan in the wake of the COVID—19 crisis. This includes a poverty—reduction target at least 50 million fewer people at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU, including at least five million children. Concerning the various measures that we have delivered over the past few years, I will mention those that are most relevant here: the Minimum Wage Directive is important for tackling in-work poverty; the Directive on Pay Transparency, to set up measures for effective enforcement of the equal pay principle between women and men; the proposed Platform Work Directive, addressing the issue of social protection in a world of work affected by digitalisation; the European Child Guarantee recommendation to address child poverty and exclusion; the European Platform on Combating Homelessness; the recommendation on minimum income, ensuring active inclusion; our guidance on distributional impact assessments to support Member States in quantifying the effect their policies have on household incomes. The efforts to deploy the measures under the Social Pillar Action Plan need to be assessed against the background of the broader economic and geopolitical situation in the EU and around the world. The overall economic prospects are challenging following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the energy crisis, the inflation hikes, Russia’s war in Ukraine and, most recently, the attacks by Hamas on Israel, which risks leading to wider escalation in the region with severe humanitarian consequences from which all parties should refrain. In general terms, indicators on risk of poverty and social exclusion in the EU have remained overall stable over the past few years, which is a considerable achievement against the situations that I have described. However, as I recently stated in this Hemicycle on the occasion of the debate on the increasing precariousness, overall statistics are good, but they do not tell the whole story. We cannot, and we do not want to neglect signs of deterioration, such as increases in material and social deprivation rates and child poverty remaining higher than poverty for the general population. A rising number of families across Europe have begun to fall into food poverty and are increasingly reliant on food banks and similar systems to meet basic needs. Increasing housing costs are substantially reducing the available income for many households. At the same time, inflation hits particularly vulnerable households and lower medium—income families. It is true that income support measures have mitigated the impact of high energy prices and inflation, but they were not sufficiently targeted to those in need.  Poverty, and in particular child poverty, remains acute in Europe, and citizens are quite rightly concerned. In-work poverty is also a persistent challenge in the EU, especially for people in non-standard forms of employment like bogus self-employment or zero—hour contracts, among them many young people, many women and many non—EU citizens. To effectively tackle the root causes of poverty. We need a structural approach, both in the EU and worldwide. We need fairness in the global economy worldwide. We need to support fair trade and uphold national, regional and global governance to improve economic and social outcomes, and eradicate corruption to ensure fairer distribution of wealth. In the EU, we must continue to pursue an integrated approach to break the intergenerational cycle of inequality and eradicate poverty. Social policies need to go hand in hand with inclusive and fairer labour markets and economic and fiscal policies. We mark this International Day for the Eradication of Poverty by fully sharing its goals. Our steadfast commitment to eradicating precariousness, poverty and social exclusion. We will relentlessly continue working together with the Member States, the European Parliament and all the stakeholders active on the ground to fight all forms of poverty.