Political summary
POLITICAL SUMMARY OF THE HDSE PROJECT AND THE PROPOSALS FOR ACTION AS ADOPTED BY THE COMMITTEE OF MINISTERS ON 30 SEPTEMBER 1998
INTRODUCTION
Extreme poverty and social exclusion are afflictions, which affect every country in the world, prompting all the international organisations to realise the urgent need for action in this area. For the Council of Europe, the 2nd Summit of Heads of State and Government held on 10-11 October 1997, provided an opportunity to consider the best ways of setting up a dynamic process to combat social exclusion resolutely and effectively.
Thus the Heads of State and Government, "recognising that social cohesion is one of the foremost needs of the wider Europe and should be pursued as an essential complement to the promotion of human rights and dignity agree to review our legislation in the social field with a view to combating all forms of exclusion and ensuring better protection for the weakest members of society."
In the adopted Action Plan, the Heads of State and Government:
- "undertake to promote social standards as embodied in the European Social Charter";
- "instruct the Committee of Ministers to define a social cohesion strategy to respond to the challenges in society and to carry out the appropriate structural reforms within the Council of Europe, including the setting up of a specialised unit for monitoring, comparing and handling issues linked to social cohesion."
The fight against social exclusion is thus part of:
- a broader approach to social cohesion, through priorities developed as areas of social improvement;
- a multidisciplinary partnership approach to the problems of social exclusion.
SOCIAL COHESION STRATEGIES FOR EUROPEAN SOCIETIES
The Copenhagen Summit of March 1995 stated firmly that "one of the main aims of social development is to provide everyone, all men and women, especially those living in poverty, with the means to exercise their rights and meet the responsibilities that enable them to contribute to the well-being of their families, their communities and humankind."
At European level, the Council of Europe must, by formulating cohesion strategies, confirm its role in addressing social development issues, with a special emphasis on:
- promoting the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights;
- combating the major causes of imbalance in European societies:
· social exclusion;
· public health problems (drug addiction, dependency connected with ageing, etc.);
· housing problems;
· labour trends;
· equilibrium of social welfare systems;
- adopting a multi-dimensional approach to immigration and gender equality issues.
All in the interest of social justice, but also as part of a process leading from the welfare state to the caring state and involving the full range of partners – citizens, elected representatives, governments, experts and representatives of associations – in a concerted drive to consolidate social cohesion.
Restoring social ties, which are a basic factor in social cohesion, is a vital part of this, and depends both on turning individuals into active citizens and initiating dialogue between them and the political, economic, civil and cultural sectors, the aim being a fully democratic society.
Within this context of social justice and participation-based citizenship, one of the main challenges facing European societies in the short and medium term is action to combat social exclusion – action that must ensure genuine representation of the people concerned.
Such representation must be one of the priority elements in the social cohesion strategy.
THE FIGHT AGAINST SOCIAL EXCLUSION
The Human Dignity and Social Exclusion Project, launched by the Council of Europe in 1994, has made it possible, on the basis of research and political consciousness-raising initiatives carried out in co-operation with other international organisations, governments, non-governmental organisations, workers and employers, firms and foundations, to:
- gain a general picture of exclusion in Europe. The final report, prepared by Ms Katherine Duffy, the research director of the Project, highlights the opportunities and dangers inherent in the changing patterns of social exclusion, pin-pointing key problems and groups particularly at risk;
- suggest lines of action, which were validated by the Project Conference, held in Helsinki from 18 to 20 May 1998.
It might therefore be proposed that the European Committee for Social Cohesion and the specialised Unit should focus their medium-term efforts in this field on the following priorities:
- developing the human rights approach;
- reassessing social policies to prevent and treat extreme poverty and social exclusion;
- initiating new dynamic processes by making optimum use of a wide range of partners.
DEVELOPING THE HUMAN RIGHTS APPROACH
Extreme poverty and social exclusion are a denial of human rights, and conventions and agreements must therefore be used to optimum effect in asserting and implementing those rights and making them more readily accessible. Their indivisibility and interdependence must also be remembered.
The following instruments are relevant here
- the European Convention on Human Rights,
- the European Social Charter and the Revised Social Charter,
- the European Code of Social Security and the Revised Code.
The Action Plan adopted at the 2nd Summit of Heads of State and Government (Strasbourg, 10-11 October 1997) had this to say on the promotion of social rights:
«Promotion of social rights: the Heads of State and Government undertake to promote social standards as embodied in the Social Charter and in other Council of Europe instruments and call for the widest possible adherence to these instruments: they resolve to improve the exchange of good practice and information between member States and to intensify their co-operation in this field».
Efforts to combat social exclusion under the Action Plan might take the following forms:
- promotion of the European Social Charter and the revised Charter, emphasising all the rights enshrined in them, and particularly Articles 30 and 31 of the revised Charter, covering the right to protection against poverty and social exclusion and the right to housing:
· by promoting ratification;
· by ensuring that the protocol providing for a system of collective complaints can be ratified and applied;
· by organising regular information for national parliaments, with a view to assessment of countries’ compliance with commitments under the Social Charter;
· by ensuring that the intergovernmental programme of activities and the conclusions of the Social Charter bodies are connected in the work of the new European Committee for Social Cohesion;
- action to publicise the Council of Europe’s legal instruments in the social security field and make them better known by :
· running training courses, seminars and colloquies on social security;
· promoting the pooling of information on the ways in which social security schemes can help to combat social exclusion;
· continuation of the work of the Steering Committee for Human Rights (CDDH) on the right to satisfaction of minimum subsistence requirements and on possible extension of the scope of the present non-discrimination clause in Article 14.
Secondly on the basis of the experience acquired from the HDSE Project, complementary approaches should be explored, including:
- improving conflict resolution by making the means of justice more accessible and working to restore confidence between excluded people and the legal system;
- developing alternative measures, such as mediation;
- making an increased use of joint appeal procedures.
THOUGHTS ON ADJUSTING SOCIAL POLICY BY TAKING ACCOUNT OF EXTREME POVERTY AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION
This applies to the following areas of social policy: health, housing, employment, social protection and education.
The approach adopted must bear in mind the need to foster non-discrimination, provide better information for underprivileged groups for the purpose of giving them easier access to services, and adjust general social policies to pay special attention to the problem of social exclusion.
These five themes should be tackled as follows (whole proposals can be found under "Summary of the proposals for action made at the Helsinki Cenference"):
Health
Work should centre on meeting the specific health care needs of groups in difficulty by:
- adjusting health and social responses;
- providing equal access, based on universal social coverage.
Housing
- Giving disadvantaged groups access to housing and enabling them to keep it are challenges for all Council of Europe member states. The following issues need to be addressed:
· responding to emergencies and preventing evictions;
· maintaining and expanding the supply of suitable housing, meeting specific needs;
· drawing up area-based policies (town planning, urban policy, regeneration of the countryside).
Employment
In this field, action should be taken to:
- promote labour market integration/reintegration of disadvantaged and excluded or marginalised groups, by intensifying job creation and promotion initiatives at local level and in the "social economy", while doing everything possible to involve workers and employers, associations and local authorities;
- strengthening equal opportunity and treatment policies for disadvantaged groups on the labour market, particularly by attacking discrimination between women and men, making it easier for people to reconcile working and family life and bringing them back onto the labour market, but also by combating discrimination against migrants, disadvantaged ethnic groups and the handicapped.
Social protection
This term applies to benefits provided by states and social security systems. The emphasis here should be on:
- analysing the obstacles, which prevent people from obtaining security benefits or result in their losing them;
- studying ways in which social security systems contribute to economic and social development;
- the special role of the voluntary sector and of social workers, as the main go-betweens for excluded persons.
Education
Training and education, both formal and informal, are more than ever central to the whole problem of exclusion. This is why the priorities will be:
- analysing difficulties in gaining access to basic and further training and education, and trying to develop contacts with the business world;
- education for democratic citizenship, opening the way to active participation in society;
- addressing psychological and social difficulties in the education of vulnerable groups.
Moreover, all the contributions to the HDSE Project have repeatedly emphasised the basic importance of family and culture for the preventive and corrective aspects of the fight against social exclusion.
INITIATING NEW DYNAMIC PROCESSES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL COHESION
In view of its acknowledged capacity to deal with large issues clearly and effectively, the Council of Europe should promote:
Broad-based partnership between its own constituent bodies (intergovernmental sector, Parliamentary Assembly, Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe) and:
- marginalised or excluded persons, enabling them to play an active part in society;
- non-governmental organisations, which play a major role in combating social exclusion and developing civil societies throughout the pan-European area;
- workers and employers.
NEW FUNCTIONS
- generating a new awareness of the real living conditions of disadvantaged groups;
- observation, a forum function for the pooling of experience;
- research and action research;
- technical assistance;
- co-operation with other international organisations;
- assessment of social policies;
NEW INSTRUMENTS THROUGH THE ESTABLISHMENT OF
- the European Committee for Social Cohesion: an instrument to work out priorities in the field of social cohesion and plan activities accordingly;
- a specialised Unit to monitor, compare and handle social cohesion issues, with the task of:
· initiating, commissioning and undertaking research on social cohesion;
· carrying out a "risk analysis" of social exclusion;
· assessing the effectiveness of activities undertaken as part of the strategy for social cohesion;
· proposing activities to promote social cohesion;
· supporting the implementation of new policies, practices and procedures.
ALL OF THIS WORK SHOULD TRY TO PROMOTE INTERLINKING OF THE VARIOUS LEVELS:
At local level
- by expanding facilities for training, research and technical assistance for regional and local authorities and councillors, and for institutionally constituted or emergent networks of voluntary bodies;
- by recognising the role of local associations and neighbourhood groups in making national policies effective at the point of impact, especially in deprived areas;
- local consultative forums, with representatives of voluntary organisations, excluded groups and ethnic minorities, including Roma and travellers, should be set up to develop and evaluate strategies to combat poverty and social exclusion, and to measure the impact of other policies introduced for that purpose.
At national level
- by recommending the setting-up of national monitoring committees and forums involving all the partners concerned, including excluded groups and ethnic minorities;
- by expanding the use of technical assistance programmes;
- by helping to develop training;
- by encouraging the introduction of national anti-poverty strategies.
At international level
By setting up a European regional meeting for follow-up action on the Copenhagen Summit on social development, and preparing the General Assembly’s extraordinary high-level session, to be held in the year 2000;
This meeting should involve all the European organisations concerned (European Union, OECD and OSCE); the European regional offices of the specialised UN agencies (ILO, Unesco, WHO, Unicef, UNDP) and the Economic Commission for Europe, the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women and the World Bank;
Its main aim would be to take follow-up action on the Copenhagen Summit, including such elements as:
- action on the final report of the Sub-Committee on Human Rights on "Extreme Poverty and Human Rights";
- ways of supplementing Unesco’s MOST Programme;
- the study of social exclusion carried out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development;
- the renewed deliberations of the European Commission after the Amsterdam Summit;
- follow-up action on the Habitat II Conference in Istanbul;
- follow-up action on the UN Conference on Women in Beijing;
- follow-up action on the Council of Europe's HDSE Project.
This regional meeting should be prepared in consultation with the NGOs, and their participation should be encouraged and facilitated.
Action with the European Union
Joint monitoring, forum, research and action research functions, fostering co-operation on all appropriate territorial levels.
