Informal meeting Social Protection Committee (SPC)

Speech staatssecretaris Klijnsma bij de opening van de Informele bijeenkomst van het Sociaal Beschermingscomité (SPC). Het thema armoedebestrijding in de EU staat centraal.

Ladies and gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to Amsterdam today.

As you all know, the fight against poverty is an important priority during the Dutch Presidency. For this reason, I am very pleased to see that today’s agenda is devoted to this important topic.

At the beginning of 2010 — during my previous service — I visited Madrid, where the European Year against Poverty and Social Inclusion was launched. As you all know, in 2010 we also committed ourselves to the EU2020 strategy — which includes an ambitious target to reduce by 20 million the number of people in poverty by the year 2020.

However, since 2010, the number of people living in poverty or social exclusion has increased by more than 4 million. In total, more than 120 million people in Europe are currently at risk of poverty or social exclusion. That’s far, far too many. People who live in poverty are not just deprived of money. They are deprived of opportunity, and that is unacceptable.

 

The road out of poverty is a long one. The road to combating poverty is too. But I truly believe that Member States can help each other to implement effective policies to reduce poverty by sharing our experiences, expertise and good practices instead of reinventing the wheel all over again.

On today’s agenda we have scheduled four presentations on innovative, integrated approaches to combating poverty. I hope these presentations will stimulate discussion and exchange of experiences.

After these presentations, you will discuss the Council Conclusions on an integrated approach to combating poverty. These Council Conclusions are very important to me. By adopting them, Member States will show their commitment to combating poverty through an integrated approach.

Such an approach is essential, as poverty is a complex problem. It can involve a wide spectrum of origins and effects, ranging from a lack of income to social exclusion.

An integrated approach, first and foremost, requires taking into consideration the perspective of the person or family involved and working on a solution in 'co-creation' with them, rather than a top-down approach.

It also requires recognising the role of and consequences for a whole range of life domains such as employment, health and long-term care, education and housing.

And it requires cooperation with all the parties involved, both in the public and private domains. Private organisations possess valuable expertise and can often reach the target group better than local governments can.

The adoption of the Council Conclusions would be an important step. It reaffirms our joint commitment to combating poverty and highlights the importance of joining forces. Where there's a will, there's a way. But there is more. These Council Conclusions provide a Michelin guide for along that way, with best practices from all Member States, which will be added as an addendum to the Council Conclusions. I hope these best practices will be useful for all relevant stakeholders as a source of inspiration.

A lot of you have already provided valuable input to the addendum. I would like to encourage all of you to provide us with best practices from your countries.

If you’re not sure about which best practice to submit – feel free to share more than one example. We are looking for a wide variety of inspiring examples. And I encourage you to seek input from all relevant stakeholders, such as NGOs.

Once the addendum is finished, I hope you will all help me to distribute the best practices within your countries and across Europe.

 

Tomorrow, you will have lunch at a very special location. It’s called Soupalicious. A social enterprise that sells biological soups, both to companies and consumers, from their restaurant in Amsterdam. Together with the food banks in the Netherlands, they have started an initiative called Souprise. It works as follows:

First, volunteers working for an NGO collect fresh vegetables that are considered to be harvest overflow. Soupalicious then makes soup out of these vegetables and donates this to the food bank. Clients of the food bank will find a delicious soup in their weekly food package. Not only does the initiative provide healthy food for people who are living in poverty, it also tackles food waste. In addition, Soupalicious offers work to people with a distance to the labour market, thus investing in their labour potential, and hence increasing their resilience.

Souprise is a great example of an integrated approach. I have provided a subsidy for this initiative and had the honour to receive the very first cup of Souprise in January last year. I can ensure you that tomorrow you will be enjoying a ‘superlicious’ soup for lunch! 

 

Ladies and gentlemen,

The road to combating poverty is a long one. We are in this for the long haul. But with valuable experts like you on board, I am confident we are on the right track.

I wish you a productive two days, and for tomorrow: soup’s up! Thank you.