Urgent call for targets and safeguards for investments in social inclusion and
the shift from institutional to community-based support

In the last years, the European Expert Group on the Transition from Institutional to Community-based Care (EEG) has closely followed and worked on the European Semester process to ensure that policies on the transition from institutional to community-based care would be adequately integrated and monitored in the process. Through constant and fruitful cooperation, the efforts of the EEG and other NGOs in the sector led, throughout the years, to a shift from a largely economic and budgetary focus of the European Semester to a more comprehensive process encompassing social issues and the inclusion of people in vulnerable situations.

Unfortunately, the structure of the new tool to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic – the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) – seems to suggest that social inclusion and protection will remain largely overlooked in the adapted European Semester. This would be an irremissible oversight to the detriment of adults and children that are already most susceptible to social exclusion.

The EEG urgently calls for the European Union and its Member States to include targets and safeguards for investments in social inclusion and community-based care in the RRF.

Read the full statement here.