On 16 March the Social Platform held an ad hoc meeting to discuss the draft report produced by Steinruck MEP of the Employment Committee, on the draft regulation for EUPSCI. The results of the discussions in this meeting have been sent to the Platform’s steering group which will meet on March 29th, and will propose an official platform response to the draft report.

The proposed EUPSCI is part of the European Commission’s proposals for the 2014-2020 EU budget - known as the multi annual financial framework, MAFF. It brings together two pre-existing programmes - “Progress” and EURES, and adds a new third strand, the micro finance initiative to support entrepreneurship. Progress is the largest component in terms of monetary investment, and is used to provide stable financing to civil society initiatives, while EURES is the EU’s attempt to promote workers mobility across international borders within the EU. The entire proposed budget for the EUPSCI is just under 1bn € over 7 years.

The final event in the series of workshops entitled open dialogue between institutions chances and challenges, was organised on 14th March in Brussels, as an opportunity to discuss the progress and the challenges still lying ahead in terms of civil dialogue.

Considering the progress made, some mechanisms of dialogue and new legal provisions (Lisbon Treat art.11) are in place today which represent an improvement to preceding conditions. Without detracting from the importance of these steps, a stronger and more coordinated effort is needed on the part of institutions and civil society if we are to reach the objective of an open transparent and regular dialogue.