POVERTY IN the EU is “still the same now as it was in 2000”, despite reduction targets set a decade ago by member states, a seminar in Dublin has heard.
The EU’s targets have failed primarily because of their “low political status” and low public visibility, according to Hugh Frazer, adjunct professor at the department of applied social studies at NUI Maynooth. The seminar was also warned that plans for the next decade are destined to repeat the mistakes of the last 10 years if heads of state insist on removing the 25 per cent reduction target in the original draft document.
Anna Visser, director of the European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland said member states opposed the target inclusion essentially because of a fear of failure but “the target presents a real opportunity to undertake a new departure about how we think about and act on poverty, social exclusion and inequality. Ultimately to try and fail is infinitely preferable than not trying at all.”
Speaking at the seminar organised by the European Commission representation in Ireland, Prof Frazer said 79 million people in the EU live at risk of poverty, varying between 9 per cent in the Czech Republic and 26 per cent in Latvia. One in 10 Europeans live in a household where nobody works and for 8 per cent of the EU’s population, low pay has meant that “having a job is not enough to work one’s way out of poverty”.
Ireland’s levels have improved from 20 per cent to 16 per cent living in poverty but rates of material deprivation in the State have risen from 11 per cent of the population to 15 per cent.
“We hear that Ireland has improved and it might look quite good in terms of consistent poverty but we only rank 9th in the EU and much lower” on other criteria.
He said that on the positive side the EU process on poverty and social exclusion had kept the issue on the EU agenda “at least to some extent” and a stronger framework has now been provided for statistical analysis, monitoring and “reporting of what states do”.
