Subject: European Child Guarantee - Greek national action plan
Council Recommendation (EU) 2021/1004 for establishing a European Child Guarantee urges Member States to develop an integrated and enabling policy framework to address social exclusion of children, focusing on reducing the socioeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Member States were recommended to submit to the Commission, within nine months of the adoption of the Recommendation, national action plans to implement the Recommendation. They were asked to ensure that regional and local authorities, non-governmental organisations promoting children's rights, children themselves and other relevant stakeholders participated in the preparation of these action plans. A similar requirement is also laid down in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 240/2014. Greece has joined with six other Member States to participate in the Child Guarantee pilot programme aimed at ensuring that vulnerable children have access to quality services.
As Greece continues to have one of the highest rates of child poverty in the EU, we ask the Commission:
1. At what stage is the pilot programme in Greece and when is the Greek national action plan due to be submitted?
2. How have the relevant bodies participated in the preparation of the Greek plan and what results have they achieved to date?
3. What funding, and how much, has been earmarked for implementation of this Recommendation in Greece?
Answer given by Mr Schmit on behalf of the European Commission
(10 June 2022)
The Phase III of the preparatory action for establishment of child guarantee, financed by the European Union and carried out in Greece by Unicef, addresses systematic disadvantages for particularly vulnerable groups of children (children in institutional care, children living with disabilities, refugee and migrant children, children from minority groups).
The analytical part of this project has now been concluded and the results available (1).
The deadline for submission of the action plans by the Member States was on 15 March 2022. The work on the Greek action plan is ongoing and the Child Guarantee Coordinator has shared an advanced draft with the Commission for comments.
The information about involvement of the relevant bodies in preparation of the action plan should be included in the plan itself. Once submitted to the Commission, the action plan will be published (2).
The information about funding for implementation of the European Child Guarantee in Greece should also be included in the action plan.
As regards the EU funds, Greece intends to earmark at least 8% of their European Social Fund+ resources for 2021-2027 to measures tackling child poverty.
This is more ambitious than the 5% allocation expected from the Member States where the risk of poverty or social exclusion among children is above the EU average.
⋅1∙ https://www.unicef.org/eca/media/20106/file/Deep%20Dive%20Greece%20-%20Main%20report%20EN.pdf
⋅2∙ https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1428&langId=en