Social Indicators: The Eu And Social Inclusion

Social Indicators This page intentionally left blank Social Indicators The EU and Social Inclusion Tony Atkinson, Bea Cantillon, Eric Marlier, and Brian Nolan With a Foreword By Frank Vandenbroucke Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © T. Atkinson, B. Cantillon, E. Marlier, and B. Nolan, 2002 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2002 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographicsrights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 0-19-925349-8 (Pbk) ISBN 0-19-925249-1 (Hbk) Foreword Social policy was explicitly introduced as a distinct focus of attention for European cooperation at the special European Summit in Lisbon in March 2000. The Lisbon Council concluded that ‘Steps must be taken to make a decisive impact on the eradication of poverty by setting adequate targets to be agreed by the Council by the end of the year’. Objectives to fight against poverty and social exclusion were then agreed at the European Council in Nice in December 2000. Since it is impossible to monitor progress in the EU member states with regard to social inclusion in the absence of comparable, quantitative indicators, the Belgian government decided to make the establishment of common European social indicators a priority for its presidency of the Council of the European Union during the second half of 2001. To underpin this political ambition, my colleague Johan Vande Lanotte (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Budget, Social Integration and Social Economy) and I organized a conference on ‘Indicators for Social Inclusion: Making Common EU Objectives Work’ in Antwerp in September 2001. This book is based on the excellent report written for that conference by Tony Atkinson, Bea Cantillon, Eric Marlier, and Brian Nolan. It was agreed at Nice that the promotion of social inclusion within the overall strategy of the EU would be best achieved by an open method of coordination. This method involves setting common objectives at European level, designing appropriate national policies to achieve the objectives, and reporting national polic