Ó Ríordáin secures major victories as EU Anti-Poverty Strategy clears key hurdle in European Parliament
Ó Ríordáin secures major victories as EU Anti-Poverty Strategy clears key hurdle in European Parliament - The Labour Party
The European Parliament’s Employment and Social Affairs Committee today backed a report on the upcoming EU Anti-Poverty Strategy, with Aodhán Ó Ríordáin MEP, who led negotiations for the Socialists & Democrats, securing major progressive wins ahead of next year’s landmark Commission proposal. The vote places strong social ambition at the heart of what will become the EU’s first-ever strategy to tackle poverty.
Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, Labour MEP for Dublin, said:
“Today’s vote is a breakthrough for those of us fighting for a Europe with a social heart. We pushed hard, and we secured real wins that can protect the most vulnerable in our society.
“We won a clear call for an EU Minimum Income Directive, so no one in Europe is left without a basic, dignified safety net. We secured €20 billion for the European Child Guarantee to protect the most vulnerable children. And we ensured Parliament demands a ban on the eviction of children into homelessness, because no child in Europe should ever lose their home through political indifference.
“We also fought for wider access to early childhood education, literacy and numeracy resources, because poverty isn’t inevitable: it is prevented when every child has the chance to thrive.
“This vote matters. Next year the Commission will publish the EU’s first-ever Anti-Poverty Strategy and it will be up to the Irish Government, under the Irish Presidency to steer this strategy – and today’s result sets the bar high. But we are under no illusions about what comes next. When this report goes to a vote of the whole Parliament, Fine Gael’s centre-right EPP, and the far-right, will try to water it down. They will have questions to answer about which side they are on – is it on the side of the most vulnerable in our society?
“We will fight for this every step of the way. Because the European Union should not be a spectator to poverty – it should be the force that ends it. And today we moved one step closer.”