Assessment of progress towards the Europe 2020 social inclusion objectives

With its objective of inclusive as well as smart and sustainable growth, and with its (first ever) EU poverty and social exclusion target, the Europe 2020 Strategy increases the importance of the EU's social objectives and integrates them with the EU's economic, employment and environmental objectives. The National Reform Programmes (NRPs) are the means by which countries are expected to translate the Europe 2020 objectives and targets into national policies. EU countries submitted their first NRPs to the European Commission in April 2011 and members of the EU Network of Independent Experts on Social Inclusion assessed their countries' NRPs from a social inclusion perspective. In particular, they assessed two things: first, how well does the NRP identify the key country's social inclusion challenges and the main bottlenecks that might prevent it from achieving the Europe 2020's social inclusion objectives (and especially the related national targets); and, secondly, how suitable are the policy actions and measures outlined in the NRP for addressing these challenges and bottlenecks and for achieving the national targets. This short report, prepared by the Network Core Team, summarises the main findings of the independent experts' country analyses. It also puts forward concrete suggestions for strengthening the social inclusion dimension of the NRP process in future.