The European Commission released its European Semester’s 2024 Spring Package on 19 June.
The European Semester is an annual review of the Member States’ social and economic policies by the European Commission.
It ensures coordination between Member States in economic and fiscal matters, and in recent years, it has also been increasingly focused on social issues. The Spring package consists of Country Reports and Country-Specific Recommendations. The Country Reports outline the issues observed in each Member State, and the Recommendations transform these into advice.
Tendencies in the 2024 Semester cycle
Disability issues remain very present within the Country Reports and, to a lesser extent, in the Recommendations. The most common issues mentioned in the Country Reports included:
- Barriers to employment: the disability employment gap.
- Development of social economy and social inclusion services.
- Increase of gap between persons with and without disabilities that are at risk of poverty and exclusion gap.
- Social exclusion of persons with disabilities;
- Inadequacy of social protection schemes;
- Inclusive education;
- De-institutionalisation, community-based services and long-term care;
- Housing for persons with disabilities and “vulnerable groups”;
- Skills development.
When it comes to the Country Specific Recommendations, the majority of the Member States were advised to:
- Address labour shortages by improving workers’ basic skills, enhancing upskilling and reskilling and increasing the labour market participation of underrepresented groups (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Slovenia and Sweden).
- Work towards sustainable growth and green transition with a focus on climate change-related risks (Lithuania and Luxembourg).
- Improve health outcomes, resilience of the health system and expand preventive care, in light of the ageing population (Czechia, Italy, Netherlands and Poland).
- Enhance the social security system and the adequacy of old-age pensions to increase incentives to work and address poverty among older people, respectively, while maintaining the long-term sustainability of public finances (Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Hungary and Lithuania).
- Ensure the affordability and availability of housing, creating quality community-based services for older people and persons with disabilities (Netherlands, Poland and Romania).
- Make education more inclusive and relevant to the labour market imbalances by further increasing the capacity and attractiveness of Vocational Education and Training programmes as well as fostering adult learning and the professional development of teachers (Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovakia and Sweden).
Our full analysis provides more information about the outcomes of the 2024 Spring Package and identifies the points and recommendations mentioned for each Member State.