Publication Details
Fighting poverty
European realities
Joakim Palme
2010
Abstract
In the European Union (EU), the commitment to a social dimension is operationalized within the Open Method of Co-ordination (OMC) and a central aim here is to eradicate poverty. The OMC is an instrument whereby the Member States (MS), through a method of evaluation and bench-marking, are encouraged to improve their policy instruments to reach common targets. Reports published by EU institutions give indications of how well the MS have performed in terms of poverty eradication. The European realities depicted in these reports are not very comforting. Many countries have high poverty rates and some groups in society experience high poverty risk in virtually all countries. However, the substantial cross-national variation gives some hope that it is possible to improve the performance but can also provide some insights in terms of identifying policies that actually work. The paper discusses three types of interventions; employment promotion, social insurance and targeted benefits.
Publication Type(s)
Conference Paper
Ten Years of War Against Poverty Conference Papers
Conference: Ten Years of War Against Poverty