European Union

Written by Marie Lecerf,

© Svyatoslav Lypynskyy / Fotolia

In 2014, around 122 million people were ‘at risk of poverty or social exclusion’ (AROPE) in the 28 EU Member States– a quarter of the population. This means they were in at least one of the following situations: at risk of monetary poverty (17.2 % of the total population); living in households with very low work intensity (11.1 %); or severely materially deprived (9.0 %).

Since the onset of the 2008 financial and economic crisis, fighting poverty and social exclusion is a key priority for the European Union. One of the aims of the Europe 2020 strategy is to reduce the number of people ‘at risk of poverty or social exclusion’ by at least 20 million by the end of the decade. Consequently, on 24 October 2012, the European Commission announced a proposal to set up a new Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) for the 2014-2020 period, to replace the EU’s food distribution programme for the most deprived (MDP).

The fund’s general objective is to promote and enhance social inclusion and therefore ultimately contribute to the goal of eradicating poverty in the Union. It seeks to alleviate the worst forms of poverty by providing non-financial assistance for the most deprived in conjunction with other EU funds, such as the European Social Fund (ESF), and with Member States’ national poverty eradication and social inclusion policies.

The EU contribution to the FEAD is more than €3.8 billion (in current prices) for the 2014‑2020 period. In addition, Member States are to co-finance at least 15 % of the costs of their national operational programmes (around €674 million), bringing the total resources channelled through the fund to approximately €4.5 billion.

The principal measures undertaken under the FEAD are:

• food support (distribution of food packages and meals to people in deprived situations, school lunches for children at risk of poverty or social exclusion, collection and distribution of donated food, etc.);
• material assistance (basic hygiene items for adults and children, basic household items, clothing, sleeping bags for the homeless, school supplies, etc.);
• accompanying measures to alleviate adversity through advice and guidance (regarding basic rights, nutrition and health, available social services and access to education services, temporary shelter for the homeless, etc.);
• social inclusion activities (improving access to existing support and social services, psychological support, training in self-reliance, language courses, etc.).

FEAD assistance is delivered via partner organisations (public bodies or non-governmental organisations (NGOs)), selected by Member States on the basis of objective and transparent criteria.

On 27 March 2019, the mid-term evaluation of the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived was published. It presents the FEAD’s main achievements for the period up to the end of December 2017. According to the report, between 2014 and 2017, the FEAD supported more than 12 million people per year and, during this period, more than 1.3 million tonnes of food were distributed. Social inclusion measures, meanwhile reached about 66 000 people. Given the FEAD’s very limited resources compared with other EU funds, the main conclusion of the mid-term evaluation is that there are strong arguments in favour of continuing the programme.

The European Court of Auditors is, however, much more severe in its evaluation of the programme’s first results. In its Special Report No 5/2019: FEAD-Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived, published on 3 April 2019, the Court assesses whether the initial set-up of the FEAD and the Member States’ operational programmes effectively target the most in need and do contribute to the Europe 2020 poverty-reduction target. The Court points out that the fund remains primarily a food aid scheme, with 80 % of its budget devoted to food support. As a result, although the FEAD offers Member States the possibility to focus on social inclusion, those measures are scarcely implemented. The Court concludes by stating that the ability of the fund to reduce poverty has yet to be demonstrated.

Read this briefing on ‘Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD)‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

As many as 77% of potential voters identify global warming as an important criteria when deciding who to vote for at the May European elections, according to an opinion poll published on Tuesday (16 April).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be joined by French and Norwegian ministers Tuesday (16 April) to officially open a massive wind farm in the Baltic Sea, a key project for her country's "energy transition".

Japan refuses to include a reference to a proposed reform of the WTO’s appellate body in the draft conclusions of an upcoming bilateral summit with the EU for fear of upsetting the US, EURACTIV.com has learned.

Wind and solar photovoltaic are way too small to cope with Europe's massive demand for heating, especially in winter, says Christian Holter who calls for allocating scarce renewable energy resources to economic sectors where they can bring the most in terms of carbon reduction.

If the EU wants to regain citizens' trust after the European elections, it has to strengthen links with cities and regions, Stefano Bonaccini told EURACTIV.com.

International leaders voiced their sorrow and solidarity with the French people as fire ravaged the iconic Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on Monday (15 April).

We should not forget about the first round of presidential elections, which revealed the uglier side of Slovak politics. It is unclear Slovak voters opted for liberal values, or because their respect for the rule of law took priority.

As ministers come to Washington for the Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank this week, they must not ignore a quiet trend shaping the experience of two billion people. Europe is ageing while Africa's youth population booms, writes David McNair.

The Council approved mandates for the Commission to open negotiations with the United States on the removal of industrial tariffs and on conformity assessment.

Plenary session, Strasbourg

Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

Opposition MPs in Romania have tabled a human rights sanctions law named after a late Russian activist, in a "symbolic" boost for EU-level sanctions of the same type.

Written by Gianluca Quaglio,

Drug addiction is one of the greatest problems facing European public health authorities. Advances in drug addiction research have focused mostly on the neurobiological aspects of the disease, but now promising new technologies are enhancing our ability to understand and treat drug addiction. A wide range of health tools for drug addiction recovery is available on the internet: information and education websites; assessment and psychotherapeutic software; comprehensive self-help programmes; and social network therapeutic communities. Use of such tools on smartphones and other mobile devices is known as mobile health (mHealth). The utilisation of new technologies in drug addiction treatment and research has generated interest, curiosity and expectation, but also concerns regarding the ethical aspects of their use.

© iconimage / Fotolia

Substance-use disorders (SUDs) are major public health concerns in the EU, with considerable interpersonal, physical and societal consequences. Around 23 million people are affected by alcohol-related disorders in Europe. One in four EU citizens over 15 years of age is a tobacco smoker. There are about 1.3 million high-risk opioid users in Europe and 2.3 million young adults (aged 15–34 years) used cocaine in the last year. Given these figures, it is not surprising that there has been significant interest in Europe in the development and implementation of technology-based interventions (TBIs) for people with SUDs.

TBIs do not attempt to replace traditional therapy. Rather, they allow for the combined use of different intervention tools, increasing the still-limited number of therapeutic methods in treating drug dependence, and reaching out to a different typology of subjects. Strategies for managing SUDs should be able to address the chronic and relapsing nature of addiction, and TBIs can provide a valuable support in addressing these challenges.

TBIs include technology-assisted behaviour therapies, education, recovery support programmes, wellness monitoring, and resources for prevention and information. These interventions can be offered via different approaches, including for instance telephone counselling and web-based video conferencing tools, self-directed desktop therapeutic tools, web-based text communication (email, chat, forums), as well as mHealth. Significant overlaps exist between the use of the aforementioned types of tools, and similar services are offered via different tools.

Overall, TBIs for SUDs appear to be effective, although their efficacy in behavioural change tends to be small, and the mechanisms through which the treatment works remain largely unknown. Nonetheless, these changes should be considered important because, from a public health perspective, even small changes become meaningful when multiplied at the population level.

Specifically, mHealth can provide support in conducting SUD research and treatment through two different pathways: (i) direct input, via self-assessments by patients; or (ii) via passive data collection, where physiological information is gathered using special sensors.

Using mobile technologies to collect self-assessments is referred to as ecological momentary assessment (EMA). EMAs help people to self-monitor behaviours at the time and in the context in which they occur. Compared to traditional measures using paper-pencil questionnaires, EMA has several benefits, such as increasing our ability to correlate instances of craving to maladaptive behaviours.

Passive data collection often relies on technologies that record patterns of movement within the patient’s environment, for example, via global positioning system (GPS) and wireless local area networks (Wi-Fi), which can be used to acquire location-based data. What is specific about these tools is the possibility to gather spatial and temporal information, i.e. where and when the behaviours of the subject occurred.

The impact of the environment in developing or sustaining SUDs has been called the ‘exposome’ of addiction. The term has already been used in other areas of medical research, such as in cancer research, where it refers to the environmental exposures throughout life as a way of understanding the environmental influence on the onset and development of tumour diseases.

In addition, physiological information from special sensors, such as those measuring blood pressure, heart rate, skin temperature or substance concentration levels in blood, can be combined with the gathered spatial and temporal data in order to get a more detailed profile of the patient and her or his behaviour, including monitoring physiological responses or precursors to craving.

Possible impacts and developments

TBIs have the potential to play an important role in enhancing the availability of SUD treatment. Given the substantial gap between the number of individuals seeking addiction treatment and the health system’s capacity to offer adequate and timely health support, TBIs appear to offer interesting opportunities for clinicians, health administrators and decision-makers to expand the availability of medical services and reduce health service barriers, such as reduced patient mobility, treatment costs or carer availability.

Moreover, based on information from smartphones and other mobile devices, it is possible to deliver, in real time, interventions during people’s daily lives. Information can be utilised by clinicians, health personnel, peers or family for detailed messages and suggestions, helping the patient to control her or his cravings. In addition to real-time monitoring of factors related to SUDs, information collected by these technologies can be used to calculate the risk for new episodes of the specific maladaptive behaviour: it has been found that relapse to substance use can be predicted using information from surveys of use and risk factors in the previous weeks. Algorithms may then be developed to identify behavioural patterns indicative of treatment progress, such as treatment response and triggers for cravings and behaviour that increases the risk of relapse.

Anticipatory policy-making

Despite encouraging progress, TBIs for SUDs need to be evaluated with caution. This field of medical science still suffers from a lack of clarity and consistency. Across the research literature there are methodological difficulties, such as a lack of common definitions, selection biases, study attrition, difficulties in mounting randomised clinical trials and uncertain conclusions drawn from the findings. Supporting TBIs for SUDs by investing in research is important for a better understanding of the potential and limits of these applications. Improving the quality of research will enable effective clinical interventions, but can also help decision-makers to better understand the potential of these technologies from a public health perspective.

Given the proliferation of technology applications, a possible policy option for fostering the implementation of TBIs in SUD treatment is to provide adequate ICT infrastructure and stimulate digital literacy among healthcare professionals. Training for health personnel will become not only necessary but also multi-disciplinary in the near future. Clinicians should develop expertise in different types of media and technological interventions, developing collaborations with experts in other fields, such as cognitive psychology, ICT and communication.

TBIs for SUDs are a component of the application of ICT in healthcare (eHealth). Several barriers hamper the wider uptake of eHealth solutions in Europe, such as limited interoperability between eHealth solutions and insufficient evidence of cost-effectiveness. A legal framework applicable to mHealth tools exists, but practical implementation brings forward questions about how specific software should be classified and thus which rules should apply. Another barrier to wider uptake of digital health applications is a lack of transparency regarding the utilisation of data collected by such applications. A privacy code of conduct for mHealth apps is currently being developed, because the issue of ambiguous data collection may render the implementation of online therapy for SUDs incompatible with health professionals’ ethical duty to protect their patients’ privacy and to guarantee patient confidentiality.

Read this ‘at a glance’ on ‘What if we could fight drug addiction with digital technology?‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

The former CEO of Volkswagen Group, Martin Winterkorn, was charged with fraud on Monday, alongside four other managers suspected of involvement in emissions cheating. Volkswagen had equipped millions of dirty diesel cars with so-called defeat devices which helped them pass emissions tests. The public prosecutor in Braunschweig, in Germany, charged the five because of "a particularly serious case of fraud and a violation of the law against unfair competition".

The elusive transatlantic trade deal is back alive and kicking but how much will Europe’s supposed principles actually be worth when the chips are down?

EU states have agreed to open trade talks with the US in a bid to rebuild relations with their oldest partner on the world stage.

In a time of growing diversity, secularism is the very principle that caters for the co-existence of the multitude of life stances and worldviews present in our societies. Yet, attempts to undermine it emanate at the highest level of the European Parliament. Secularism is a key principle of the European project, writes Giulio Ercolessi.

Coal has historically been at the cornerstone of the UK's electricity mix, but the first three months of 2019 saw the electricity grid clock up 650 hours of coal-free generation – more than was achieved during the entirety of 2017. EURACTIV's media partner edie.net reports.

Germany, as well as other EU member states in the Schengen area, is extending the period of random border checks. The EU Commission is not pleased. EURACTIV’s media partner Der Tagesspiegel reports.

Poland was the most populous country and biggest economy joining the EU in the 2004 “big bang” enlargement. The Polish citizens confirmed their will to join the Union in a referendum in June 2003.