Unity makes strength: united together to monitor the social-economic development of the European Union

The SOLIDAR’s members are joined together to monitoring the actions of the European governments in the implementation of the social progress in EU member states. This is possible thanks to the monitoring campaign called SOCIAL PROGRESS WATCH INITIATIVE.

Monitoring progress and ensuring the active involvement of EU countries are key elements of the European strategy. This is done through the European Semester, an annual cycle of macro-economic, budgetary and structural policy coordination.

In the framework of the European Semester – set up by the European Commission to foster economic growth and prevent excessive macro-economic imbalances – employment and social developments (the so called “social dimension”) should be given due attention in order to make concrete steps towards realizing social cohesion as well as preventing increasing disparities and long-term exclusion.

In this context SAM.I is involved in an expert group with other members of SOLIDAR, and is working to ensure a stronger European social dimension and for bringing the added value of civil society organizations to economic growth.

To do so, they have set up the Social Progress Watch Initiative, a tool to monitor and evaluate progress made towards a more social and cohesive Europe. The SOLIDAR Social Progress Watch Initiative will be carried out in a first phase in 11 EU Member States, namely: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The initiative, developed together with our national members and partners, will start from the evaluation of the implementation of the Country Specific Recommendations 2013. It will continue providing evidence-based recommendations and assessments on employment, education and social policies to the European Institutions and Member States involved in the design of the policy coordination process of the European Semester 2014.

More information:

http://www.solidar.org/Active-Inclusion-Social-Progress.html