The European Commission has declared 2012 European Year of active ageing and intergenerational solidarity, and, as with the current year of volunteering and the previous year against poverty, a group of interested civil society organisations is forming to support the actions in the year, and push for their vision of the theme to be listened to. The European year creates a certain amount of visibility and momentum for the theme in question and can be a good opportunity to lobby and build partnerships at national level. 

CEDAG attended the 14th September meeting of the burgeoning coalition of European networks for the Year  2012, organised by Age platform which is coordinating the coalition. We attended this meeting as an observer organisation in order to gain information to allow the CEDAG membership to decide whether they wish to join the coalition.

At the meeting, the European Commission first presented its ongoing preparations for the Year 2012, in particular with the national coordinating bodies. In most countries this is housed within a government department, but it is hoped that the ministries will try to construct a structure of stakeholders to support them. If your organisation or your members are involved in any aspect of active ageing or solidarity between the generations, and you wish to be involved or informed, you can find out the contact details for your country here.         (Photo: taoty)                                                                                                                                                                                             

 We would be very interested to know if you are getting in contact, and what level of involvement your coordinating body allows you.

There is widespread confusion at EU level on the exact nature of social economy enterprises. Very often, there is a confusion between “work insertion social enterprises” and “social economy enterprises”. Those two categories are not mutually exclusive, on the contrary. But social economy enterprises are much more diverse : many of them provide high-quality services such as health care or environment-friendly products. Some of them even provide financial services with a social dimension, such as banking cooperatives, which have proved much more socially responsible in the face of the current financial crisis than other types of  banks.

European societies are becoming more diverse as a result of the mobility rights linked to EU citizenship and of rising international migration flows. Some see this diversity as a potential economic and social strength, if properly managed. Others warn of a threat to social stability through weakening intracommunity bonds and a dilution of shared values and objectives. Still others may instrumentalise migrant communities as scapegoats for social or political problems.

For many months, two connected debates – and two acronyms – have been bringing uncertainty to social NGOs in the wake of the EU 2020 strategy. It concerns how NGOs will be able to engage with the European institutions and influence the development and implementation of policies in the future.

On the one hand is the social OMC, the ‘open method of coordination’ which over the last 10 years has become a prominent way for national and European public authorities to engage with each other and, to some extent, with interested non-governmental actors like civil society, businesses and trade unions. On the other hand, is the European Platform Against Poverty which people refer to as EPAP which is a new initiative created to respond to the EU target of reducing the number of people in poverty by 20%.