REPORT FROM THE EXCO Estonia, June 27th 2014 EUROPEAN ANTI-POVERTY NETWORK RÉSEAU EUROPÉEN DES ASSOCIATIONS DE LUTTE CONTRE LA PAUVRETÉ ET L’EXCLUSION SOCIALE

KEY CHALLENGES - EXTERNAL Very little confidence in the current EU2020 strategy and that most governments would deliver on the social, employment and poverty targets they had agreed. Social OMC – National Social Reports not visible or priority for Commission Role of macroeconomic policy in supporting/undermining social agenda How to be more pro-active, but still have an EAPN EU common project?

KEY CHALLENGES - INTERNAL Ambition of the mandate and workload Diversity of needs, knowledge and experience Ensure there is solidarity and a relevance for all members Size and packed agenda  a challenge to ensure members active participatIon in decision making, sharing experiences and developing a bottom-up approach Difficulty of engaging national networks and Eos Involving People Experiencing Poverty an increasing challenge How to make the Task Forces useful and beneficial to members

Key points for discussion To what extent does the time/ energy of the EUISG continue to focus on Europe 2020? How far does our Commission funding depend upon this work (both EAPN core budget and the Alliance Project) – what are the implications of this for EAPN? If we continue, should we change our approach? to reduce the work? have more impact? Help networks as a whole engage? Make it more relevant to national priorities?

CONTEXT The Executive has mandated the EUISG to follow Objectives 1.1 and 1.2 of the current Strategic Plan, leading on all the EAPN engagement with EU policy-making under Europe 2020. Once a year, the EUISG steering group reports to the Executive and has a discussion about the way the implementation of the work programme is progressing, what are the achievements, the challenges, how can Exco facilitate the work of EUISG. While the work programme is complex and heavy, some members feel they don’t get enough support from Exco. How can the cooperation between EUISG and Exco be strengthened in the National Networks and inside EAPN Europe? What internal communication could work better between these two structures so that Networks are effective national anti-poverty platforms?

Scope/Challenges of EU policy work of the EUISG EAPN needs to keep working on Europe 2020, as it is the main EU policy framework and impacts so strongly on our funding. Give more focus to CSRs-as they are a driver for national policy, We need to work on the macroeconomic agenda, and find ways of getting more expertise. More pro-active – ie preparing inputs/analysis to input to the NRPs, that can be used by national networks in their national policy work Major challenge for non EU countries – what is their role? Focus should be on antipoverty strategies and monitoring government’s performance to be used as benchmarking.

Scope/Challenges of EU policy work of the EUISG Need to refocus on key priorities and give more focus on policy issues/gains Consider other ways of collecting the information - ie not just questionnaires/not so technical – particularly feeding in more clearly the reality of PEP and their words. Important to simplify documents and invest more capacity building. Look more clearly about how the EUISG work merges/overlaps with the work of the EU Semester Alliance at national and EU level

Coherence across EAPN Concern about the separation of the policy work from the rest of EAPN work – this was seen as partly an issue of better relationships between EUISG and EXCO members at EU and national levels, All different bodies in EAPN should mainstream this work and its objectives, not just leave EUIS to bear responsibility alone ie in the Task Forces, development and capacity building and in the MASS. Capacity building is a major issue, as well as more simplified information/training materials.

EXCO/EUIS: A RELATION TO BE IMPROVED- How? Establish regular contacts between both/e-mailing key documents and building a personal relationship was seen as important. Common meeting between EXCO and EUIS once a year – the whole group. EXCO sub-groups could work on common themes/topics particularly on areas which link to alternative agenda

EUIS / National level: how networks are integrating this work at the national level and what mechanisms they are using. EUIS member can make notes/impressions to stimulate debate in their network. Set up Europe 2020 groups or Europe groups which provide a focus. Ensure as regular topic on Board meetings. Better if EUIS and EXCO representatives were on the boards of national networks so that the information and debate could be a central part of the network’s work. How to involve PEP actively? A) Integrate their concerns in the more technical policy work. B) Policy measures should be understandable to everybody.

Using New Technologies and Methods: limited resources for face to face meeting, and also overreliance on (LONG) documents Think outside the box Stream meetings so that members can access them, including EXCO members. Skype sessions once a month/question and answers for those who have doubts. Short videos on key topics/debates and short capacity building and trainings. More participative methodologies in the EUIS.

Be realistic but responsable … Recognition about the varied levels and capacities of the different networks, and the need to not be too ambitious BUT Important to do common EU policy work as a crucial goal for EAPN’s common project. Members taking responsibility for raising their issues/concerns Provide capacity building to members to help them engage BUT Networks also take responsibility to raise their concerns and then agree commitments.