The Europe 2020 Strategy, launched today by the European Commission, sets out a vision of Europe's social market economy for the 21st century as smart, sustainable and inclusive, delivering high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion.

One of the three main priorities identified by the strategy is ‘inclusive growth’: raising participation in the labour market, the acquisition of skills and the fight against poverty. A key target is an increase in the employment rate of the population aged 20-64 from the current 69% to at least 75% through the greater participation of women, older workers and migrants in the work force.

Within one of the strategy’s flagship initiatives, ‘European Platform against Poverty’, the European Commission has committed to designing and implementing programmes to promote social innovation for the most vulnerable, in particular by providing innovative education, training, and employment opportunities for deprived communities, to fight discrimination, and to develop a new agenda for migrant integration to enable them to take full advantage of their potential.

At national level, Member States will promote shared collective and individual responsibility in combating poverty and social exclusion; define and implement measures addressing the specific circumstances of groups at particular risk (such as one-parent families, elderly women, minorities, Roma, people with a disability and the homeless); and fully deploy their social security and pension systems to ensure adequate income support and access to health care.

Read the EU 2020 press release: EN / FR / DE (versions in all EU languages available here)

Download the full strategy document (PDF): EN / DE / FR / ES / IT