Europe is marked by the persistence of both the housing crisis and energy poverty, as well as important budget cuts in social welfare. Both civil society and civic rights face increasing constraints and hostility. However, improvements have taken place in education and youth unemployment, playing an important role in the green transition.
Paese punteggio: 61
Progress in key areas like gender equality, wages, healthcare access, and green jobs is reported. However, challenges remain, particularly in aligning Albania’s workforce with labour market needs, addressing gaps in training for key professions, ensuring meaningful civil society involvement, and improving low wages and social dialogue.
Paese punteggio: 58
Bulgaria has made progress in areas like youth employment, STEM education, and digitalizing social protection, but major challenges rimanere in healthcare, gender equality, and civic space. Energy access has improved, though reforms are slow. Press freedom has declined, and structural healthcare issues persist.
Paese punteggio: 48
Croatia faces ongoing challenges, including a lack of comprehensive migration and inclusion policies, rising poverty due to inflation, and a housing plan that falls short in practice. Civil dialogue has faced new restrictions, and a just green transition is hindered by fossil fuel dependence and political inaction. Nonetheless, positive legislative steps were taken, such as legislative improvements for migrant workers and GMB beneficiaries.
Paese punteggio: 32
France has declined in all five categories of the SRM, with setbacks in education, social policy, and civic space. Despite some poverty measures being maintained, their impact has lessened due to new conditions, and key reforms rimanere stalled. Civil society faces increasing hostility, with protest restrictions, funding cuts, and intensified police action.
Paese punteggio: 50
Germany faced a turbulent 2024–2025, marked by funding cuts to welfare and civil society organizations and a hostile political climate toward dissenting voices. Migration policy grew stricter and more labour-market oriented, and gender inequality and violence persisted.
Paese punteggio: 29
Greece faces ongoing challenges, with limited policy action to improve social conditions. Vulnerable groups, including migrants, Roma, and those in poverty, are inadequately supported, and housing, energy, gender inequality and mobility access remain critical issues. Civil dialogue is weak, e educazione reforms jeopardise the system’s stability and accessibility.
Paese punteggio: 34
Social rights in Italy are deteriorating, with persistent gender inequality, high youth unemployment, and growing regional disparities. Migrant inclusion is jeopardised, while civic space is shrinking under restrictive government measures.
Paese punteggio: 64
Kosovo faces persistent social challenges, particularly in employment, gender equality, and youth unemployment. Key issues include inadequate childcare, outdated lavoro laws, poor enforcement of safety regulations, and limited access to essential services. While civic space is generally good, the exclusion of national minorities continues to affect equality and employment conditions.
Paese punteggio: 48
In North Macedonia youth unemployment remains high despite new measures, and civil society organisation are rarely meaningfully involved in policymaking. Poverty, especially among rural and minority groups, endures, though rising minimum wages and potential for quality green jobs offer hope for improvement.
Paese punteggio: 20
Portugal has been regressing in several social areas. Gender gaps in pay and employment persist, while wages lag behind living costs and precarious work remains widespread. Housing is increasingly unaffordable, migrants face discrimination and administrative barriers, and funding cuts threaten CSOs that provide essential social services.
Paese punteggio: 45
Serbia has made some progress in welfare services and migrant inclusion, largely thanks to CSOs and private actors. However, delays in legislation and poor enforcement continue to hinder progress in key areas like housing, youth employment, and gender equality. Civic space resti under threat, with frequent attacks on protesters, journalists, and CSOs.
Paese punteggio: 32
Slovenia has made progress in migrant inclusion, healthcare access, just transition and education, supported by EU funding. Civic space has improved, and the minimum wage remains comparatively high. However, challenges persist in youth employment, gender equality, and affordable housing.
Paese punteggio: 63
Spain has seen improvements in job security, vocational training, and green jobs. However, challenges rimanere in occupational health and safety, healthcare access – especially for third-country nationals – and the ongoing housing crisis. Civil dialogue continues to play a key role in policy design.
Settore di intervento
01
Combat segregation in education and foster inclusion. To this end, give prominence to education in the frame of the European Semester process, promote lifelong learning systems at national level, establish ambitious European targets for equity in education systems, and a target for citizenship competences.
Settore di intervento
02
Ensure real access to national language courses for migrants and the recognition of competences of non-EU nationals to increase their possibilities to participate in society and access the labour market. To this end, foster the validation of learning outcomes acquired in non-formal and informal education environments by fully implementing the 2012 Council Recommendations on the validation of learning outcomes.
Settore di intervento
03
Systematically apply an intersectional approach to social measures at EU level, acknowledging and tackling the specific challenges encountered by minority groups, including migrants, in accessing social rights. Pay particular attention to their right to adequate housing, fight against poverty, and fair working conditions.
Settore di intervento
04
Seize the Gender Equality Strategy 2026-2030 to push for ambitious measures to close employment, pay and pension gaps, as well as foster work-life balance of women.
Settore di intervento
05
Ensure the ambitious implementation of the Adequate Minimum Wage Directive and monitor the definition of adequacy to ensure it keeps up with the rising cost of living including through the European Semester. Provide support in developing wage-setting reforms through the European Social Fund in candidate countries.
Settore di intervento
06
Tackle the financialisation of the housing market by curbing speculative investment and limiting wealth accumulation through housing and by regulating the housing market, including through rent caps. Only allow private investment in the market when it responds to ambitious social and environmental standards.
Settore di intervento
07
Expand the affordable housing stock, namely the social housing stock, through renovations, rent control measures and adequate investment in social and affordable housing. Provide substantial support to social and solidarity economy actors through funding and privileged access to public procurement, in the light of their essential role in ensuring access to affordable housing. The European Affordable Housing Plan should ambitiously fulfil these objectives.
Settore di intervento
08
Proporre un European Anti-Poverty strategy that is based on principles like human rights, a holistic approach, and intersectionality. Tackle all forms of poverty including in-work poverty, pension poverty, energy poverty and transport poverty.
Settore di intervento
09
Ensure adequate funding for social policies through a stand-alone and ambitious ESF in the next MFF and prevent dispersion of funds for other priorities, like defence. Support funding for access to public and essential services, including healthcare, and support public investment with a progressive taxation policy.
Settore di intervento
10
Ensure access to adequate funding for CSOs, including for their vital advocacy work. Align the next MFF with this need by allocating enough funds and establishing transparent and proportionate rules to access them at multiple levels. Support CSOs in candidate countries as part of their accession process, including through access to funding.
.
Settore di intervento
11
Stand up for civil society by putting a decisive end to the specious attacks on CSOs carried out by right-wing political forces at EU, national and local level. Protect and empower activists and CSOs by introducing a Civil Society Strategy fit for purpose.
Settore di intervento
12
Assicurarsi che the EPSR, civic space, social and civil dialogue are highly prioritised in accession negotiations for candidate countries
Settore di intervento
13
As part of the announced Quality Jobs Roadmap, the Commission should propose a Directive for a Just Transition in the world of work through the anticipation and management of change. This Directive should require companies, Member States, and local authorities to take concerted measures ensuring quality jobs in industrial transitions, and to integrate them into transition plans.
Settore di intervento
14
The Just Transition Directive or the Quality Jobs Act should include a ‘Quality Job Golden Rule’ with which all EU transition policies and any form of public support at national and EU levels must comply. This rule should set out a series of obligations, such as the guarantee of wages adjusted to changing living costs, the participation of workers in the industrial transitions affecting them, and the adjustment of OHS measures to new emerging risks.
.
Settore di intervento
15
Building on the Directive and the Golden Rule, the Quality Jobs Roadmap and Act should spearhead the development of strategies and measures supporting just transitions in sensitive industrial sectors, such as retraining opportunities during paid working hours, the creation of fair labour practices, including sustainable supply chains in the construction sector and limiting subcontracting in tender processes.
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Combat segregation in education and foster inclusion. To this end, give prominence to education in the frame of the European Semester process, promote lifelong learning systems at national level, establish ambitious European targets for equity in education systems, and a target for citizenship competences.
Ensure real access to national language courses for migrants and the recognition of competences of non-EU nationals to increase their possibilities to participate in society and access the labour market. To this end, foster the validation of learning outcomes acquired in non-formal and informal education environments by fully implementing the 2012 Council Recommendations on the validation of learning outcomes.
Systematically apply an intersectional approach to social measures at EU level, acknowledging and tackling the specific challenges encountered by minority groups, including migrants, in accessing social rights. Pay particular attention to their right to adequate housing, fight against poverty, and fair working conditions.
Seize the Gender Equality Strategy 2026-2030 to push for ambitious measures to close employment, pay and pension gaps, as well as foster work-life balance of women.
Ensure the ambitious implementation of the Adequate Minimum Wage Directive and monitor the definition of adequacy to ensure it keeps up with the rising cost of living including through the European Semester. Provide support in developing wage-setting reforms through the European Social Fund in candidate countries.
Tackle the financialisation of the housing market by curbing speculative investment and limiting wealth accumulation through housing and by regulating the housing market, including through rent caps. Only allow private investment in the market when it responds to ambitious social and environmental standards.
Expand the affordable housing stock, namely the social housing stock, through renovations, rent control measures and adequate investment in social and affordable housing. Provide substantial support to social and solidarity economy actors through funding and privileged access to public procurement, in the light of their essential role in ensuring access to affordable housing. The European Affordable Housing Plan should ambitiously fulfil these objectives.
Proporre un European Anti-Poverty strategy that is based on principles like human rights, a holistic approach, and intersectionality. Tackle all forms of poverty including in-work poverty, pension poverty, energy poverty and transport poverty.
Ensure adequate funding for social policies through a stand-alone and ambitious ESF in the next MFF and prevent dispersion of funds for other priorities, like defence. Support funding for access to public and essential services, including healthcare, and support public investment with a progressive taxation policy.
Ensure access to adequate funding for CSOs, including for their vital advocacy work. Align the next MFF with this need by allocating enough funds and establishing transparent and proportionate rules to access them at multiple levels. Support CSOs in candidate countries as part of their accession process, including through access to funding.
.
Stand up for civil society by putting a decisive end to the specious attacks on CSOs carried out by right-wing political forces at EU, national and local level. Protect and empower activists and CSOs by introducing a Civil Society Strategy fit for purpose.
Assicurarsi che the EPSR, civic space, social and civil dialogue are highly prioritised in accession negotiations for candidate countries
As part of the announced Quality Jobs Roadmap, the Commission should propose a Directive for a Just Transition in the world of work through the anticipation and management of change. This Directive should require companies, Member States, and local authorities to take concerted measures ensuring quality jobs in industrial transitions, and to integrate them into transition plans.
The Just Transition Directive or the Quality Jobs Act should include a ‘Quality Job Golden Rule’ with which all EU transition policies and any form of public support at national and EU levels must comply. This rule should set out a series of obligations, such as the guarantee of wages adjusted to changing living costs, the participation of workers in the industrial transitions affecting them, and the adjustment of OHS measures to new emerging risks.
.
Building on the Directive and the Golden Rule, the Quality Jobs Roadmap and Act should spearhead the development of strategies and measures supporting just transitions in sensitive industrial sectors, such as retraining opportunities during paid working hours, the creation of fair labour practices, including sustainable supply chains in the construction sector and limiting subcontracting in tender processes.