€20 Billion To Fight Child Poverty: David Casa’s Resolution Receives Support From The EU Parliament
Maltese MEP David Casa just received European Parliament (EP) backing on a resolution calling for €20 billion to fight child poverty across the EU.
“Poverty is something children inherit,” Casa, who helped negotiate the resolution as a rapporteur, declared “our society will not be fair for as long as there are still children who are hungry.”
The resolution is geared at strengthening the Child Guarantee two years from its adoption and Casa led negotiations on behalf of the EPP Group.
The resolution called for an urgent increase in funding to combat child poverty, with a dedicated budget of €20 billion by 2027 through a budgetary revision and a reinforcement of the multi-billion European Social Fund. Casa negotiated this on behalf of the EP earlier in this mandate.
“The European Parliament has made this call on several occasions, numerous resolutions have been passed, and a majority of the Parliament supports this increase. Yet, once again, the Commission failed to include this call in the mid-term revision of the multi-annual financial framework,” Casa strongly stated.
The resolution urges governments to improve the quality of their National Action Plans, through which measures are targeted to address child poverty. It further reiterates the importance of tackling poverty through a holistic approach to improved nutrition, easier access to education, and healthcare, as well as better housing.
For instance, to improve nutrition, member states should ensure hot meals in schools.
“Collecting and sharing of data remains one of the obstacles for the better implementation of the Child Guarantee,” Casa stated. “We need to ensure that the best practices are shared and streamlined among Member States.”
In his address to plenary yesterday, Casa turned the Parliament’s attention to the vulnerability of children, who also suffered the effects of global crises but were worst equipped to handle them.
And despite this step forward, he admitted that this is still not enough to tackle the deep-rooted and systemic issue of child poverty.
“There is still a great deal of work to be done.”
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