(fra kommisjonsforslaget)

(1) On 17 November 2017, the European Pillar of Social Rights was jointly proclaimed by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission as a response to social challenges in Europe. The twenty key principles of the pillar are structured around three categories: equal opportunities and access to the labour market; fair working conditions; social protection and inclusion. The twenty principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights should guide the actions under the European Social Fund (ESF). On 4 March 2021, the Commission put forward an Action Plan for the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights (the ‘Action Plan’), including ambitious yet realistic Union headline targets for 2030 on employment (that at least 78 % of the population aged 20-64 should be in employment), skills (that at least 60 % of all adults should participate in training every year) and poverty reduction (that at least 15 million fewer people should be at risk of poverty or social exclusion, including 5 million children) (the ‘Union headline targets for 2030’) and complementary sub-targets, as well as a revised Social Scoreboard. In order to contribute to the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights the ESF should support investments in people and reforms of the systems in the policy areas of employment, education and social inclusion, thereby supporting economic, territorial and social cohesion in accordance with Article 174 of the Treaty.

(2) The guidelines for the employment policies of the Member States, as provided for in Article 148(2) of the Treaty, adopted annually by the Council in the context of the European Semester, are a key instrument for coordination of Union and national employment and social policies. They provide common priorities and targets for employment, education, skills and social policies with a view to improving the Union’s competitiveness and making it a better place to invest, create jobs and foster social cohesion. The ESF is the Union’s main instrument for supporting the employment guidelines and achieving Union objectives in employment and social policies. The employment guidelines complement the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights. In this context, the scope of the ESF for 2028 to 2034 should be fully aligned with Council Decision (EU) … 1 [Employment guidelines adopted by the Council at the latest by 1 January 2027].

(3) At Union level, the European Semester of economic policy coordination is the framework to identify national reform priorities and monitor their implementation. Member States should submit annual progress reports on the implementation of their medium-term fiscal-structural plans. That framework should be the basis for the use of Union funding in a coherent manner, including with a view to maximise the added value of the financial support to be received. 

(4) The Union is confronted with structural challenges arising from economic globalisation, vulnerable supply chains, the management of migration flows and the increased security threat, the clean energy transition, technological change and demographic change, an ageing workforce, lack of social housing, and growing skills and labour shortages in many sectors and regions.

(5) Taking into account the changing realities in the world of work, the Union should be prepared for current and future challenges by investing in relevant skills, by making growth more inclusive and by improving employment and social policies, including in view of labour mobility and sectoral restructuring, paying attention to urban and rural areas that face particular social weaknesses . 

(6) Between now and 2040, the Union labour market will comprise approximately 1 million fewer persons each year. Furthermore, in addition to a shrinking workforce, some regions are affected by a small and stagnant share of the population with tertiary education, making it difficult to compensate for the loss of labour through higher labour productivity. This will increase pressure on the social welfare model of the Union, putting its sustainability and adequacy under pressure. It will also increase labour and skills shortages in the labour market, putting strain on economic growth and competitiveness. For some sectors this will lead to labour cost pressures. This is why the ESF needs to support an increase in participation in the labour market, especially of women and young people, persons with disabilities, Roma communities and to support employers in finding the right people for available jobs, empower older workers with appropriate labour market and workplace measures, ensure a skilled workforce able to tackle major societal challenges, and support a healthy work life balance including by ensuring access to quality childcare.

(7) On 29 January 2025, the Commission presented the Competitiveness Compass. The Compass sets a path for Europe to become the place where future technologies, services, and clean products are invented, manufactured, and put on the market, while being the first continent to become climate neutral. It recognises five horizontal enablers for competitiveness, including promoting skills and quality jobs, and highlights that the foundation of Europe’s competitiveness is its people. To be competitive and prepared for the future, the Union needs to support and prepare its people with the skills and competences needed for success in learning, work, and life.

(8) In addition, on 26 February 2025 the Commission adopted the Communication “The Clean Industrial Deal: A joint roadmap for competitiveness and decarbonisation”. It is vital to recognise the critical role of skills in facilitating a successful transition to a cleaner and more competitive industrial future within the Union. Developing a highly skilled workforce is essential for driving innovation and advancing decarbonisation and circularity across vital industries. This focus on skill enhancement is crucial for achieving the Union’s objectives of a just transition and for sustaining and enhancing the Union’s global competitiveness. Furthermore, access to environmental resources and their benefits is unequally distributed across society, as are environmental hazards and health risks. It is more likely to fall disproportionately on vulnerable groups.

(9) The Union of Skills aims to support the development of quality, inclusive and adaptable education, training and skills systems to increase the Union’s competitiveness, preparedness, security and democracy. Therefore, in line with the Union of Skills, the Union should ensure sufficient funding to build solid skills foundations and promote lifelong and future-oriented upskilling and reskilling opportunities for all, in particular to address the challenges of the digital and green transitions. This will contribute to notably digital skills and key enabling technologies but also , skills to support emerging sectors, with a view to providing people with skills adjusted to digitalisation, technologically and innovation-driven changes, social and economic change, facilitating career transitions, mobility and supporting in particular low-skilled or poorly qualified adults. In line with the Union of Skills, the challenges of the digital and green transitions need to be addressed by upskilling and reskilling workers, aligning education with industry needs, and fostering partnerships among educational institutions, employers, and public authorities. It is also necessary to enhance circulation and adequate allocation of skills in the internal market, including through easier skills portability, and be able to attract and retain skills in the EU.

(10) Regulation (EU) [NRP Regulation] establishes the general rules on the National Regional Partnership Plan (the ‘NRP Plan’) and lays down, in particular, the objectives to be supported by the National Regional Partnership Plans and the rules concerning the preparation, implementation, management and control of such Plans. The ESF is one of the nationally pre-allocated funds grouped under the National Regional Partnership Plan, in accordance with Regulation (EU) [...] [NRP Plan Regulation. It is therefore necessary to clarify the scope of support of the ESF in relation to the objectives set out in the NRP Regulation and lay down specific provisions concerning the implementation of the ESF.

(11) Efficient and effective implementation of actions supported by the NRP Plan, including the ESF, depends on good governance and partnership between all actors at the relevant territorial levels and the socio-economic actors, in particular the social partners and civil society organisations.

(12) In order to strengthen Europe’s societies and Europe’s Social model, Member States should allocate a minimum amount of resources under their National and Regional Partnership Plans adopted in accordance with Regulation (EU) [NRP Plan Regulation] to the ESF. The diverse nature and severity of different socio-economic challenges in Member States requires a more flexible approach to programming. Whilst a minimum level of support for social policies is necessary to ensure action commensurate to these challenges, it also needs to be closely corresponding to the national and regional characteristics. The underlying sources of social disparities or problems need to inform the relative importance given to investments and reforms within the realm of the Employment Guidelines and the ESF. This implies that policy safeguards through thematic concentration should result from engagement between Member States and the Commission. The minimum amount of ESF must also find the balance between the strategic interest the Union has in investing in its people, and thereby in the quality of labour supply as well as social progress, and at the same time investment needs covered by other specific objectives enlisted in article 3 of the [NRP Plan Regulation].

(13) The ESF should support employment, equal access for all to the labour market, fair and quality working conditions and labour mobility. The ESF should support Member States in providing support to unemployed and inactive people with effective, timely, coordinated and tailor-made assistance based on support for job searches, training, up- and reskilling and access to other enabling services, paying particular attention to people in vulnerable situations and people negatively affected by the green and digital transitions or labour market shocks, as well as those furthest away from the labour market. The ESF should continue to focus on youth unemployment and the issue of young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs) through the prevention of early leaving from education and training, and structural improvement of the school-to-work transition, including through the full implementation of the reinforced Youth Guarantee, which should also support quality youth employment opportunities. In addition, the ESF should continue to invest in skills crucial for the green and digital transitions.

(14)The ESF should enhance labour supply and improve education and training and lifelong acquisition of skills. In particular, the ESF should help progression within education and training and transition to work, support lifelong learning, including formal, non-formal and informal learning that takes place at all stages in life and employability, and contribute to competitiveness and societal and economic innovation by supporting scalable and sustainable initiatives in these fields. This could be achieved for example through work-based learning and apprenticeships, lifelong guidance, skills anticipation in cooperation with industry, up-to-date training materials, forecasting and graduate tracking, training of educators, validation of learning outcomes and recognition of qualifications.

(15) The ESF should facilitate access to services, including the strengthening of the modernisation, digitalisation and the resilience of both healthcare and long-term care services. The ESF should support Member States in implementing measures to eliminate all forms of discrimination and ensure equal opportunities for all, and in particular for groups that are under-represented in the labour market, ensuring equal access to services. The availability of affordable, sustainable and high-quality services such as early childhood education and care, out-of-school care, education, training, and health and long-term care, in particular family and community-based care services, is a necessary condition for ensuring equal opportunities and labour mobility. The ESF should ensure that everyone, including children in line with the European Child Guarantee, have access to essential services of good quality. The specific needs of persons with disabilities, including accessibility, should be taken into account in relation to those services as well as independent living. The ESF should also contribute to the modernisation of social protection systems with a view in particular to promoting their accessibility.

(16) Support through the ESF should be used to promote equal opportunities for all, to support strong social safety nets, foster social inclusion, intergenerational fairness and fight poverty. The ESF should support Member States’ efforts to tackle poverty, including by addressing material deprivation, with a view to breaking the cycle of disadvantage across generations and promote social inclusion by ensuring equal opportunities for all, tackling discrimination and addressing health inequalities. This implies mobilising a range of policies targeting the most disadvantaged people regardless of their age, including children in poverty, marginalised communities such as the Roma, the working poor and the most deprived. The ESF should promote the active inclusion of people far from the labour market with a view to ensuring their socio-economic integration. The ESF should also tackle homelessness, including with prevention and alleviation measures in line with the Lisbon declaration of 2021. Support to social innovation plays an important role in achieving these objectives and should therefore be promoted.

(17) The principles of democracy, the rule of law and protection of fundamental rights are fundamental values of the Union. These values are fundamental for every single person, especially for those who are most vulnerable. Furthermore, they are instrumental for the effective implementation of the ESF. Therefore, the ESF should also support the promotion and implementation of these values for all. The ESF will also continue to address the rights of persons with disabilities as enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It will also ensure coherence with the Union of Equality and its related Strategies1 that aim at combating discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation and ensure social cohesion by sustaining and developing open, fundamental rights-based, democratic, equal and inclusive societies based on the rule of law.

(18) Regulation (EU) [National Plan Regulation] requires that Member States respect horizontal principles in the preparation and implementation of the national and regional partnership plans. In this context, Member States should also be encouraged to use the ESF to supports targeted actions to promote horizontal principles such as the promotion of gender equality and ensuring the accessibility of services for people with disabilities and to enable people with disabilities to actively participate.

(19) To ensure that the social dimension of Europe as set out in the European Pillar of Social Rights is duly put forward and that a sufficient amount of resources is targeting those most in need, Member States should allocate resources of the ESF to fostering social inclusion.

(20) Due to the particular need to support children in poverty Member States should also programme resources of the ESF to address the measures under the Child Guarantee.

(21) The ESF should contribute to the reduction of poverty by supporting national schemes aiming to alleviate food and material deprivation and promote the social integration of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion and the most deprived. Member States should allocate resources of the ESF to address the forms of extreme poverty with the greatest social exclusion impact, such as homelessness and food and material deprivation.

(22) In light of persistently high levels of youth unemployment and inactivity in a number of Member States and regions, in particular affecting young people who are neither in employment, nor in education or training, it is necessary that those Member States continue to invest sufficient resources of the ESF towards measures to promote youth employment, including through the implementation of the Youth Guarantee. Member States should therefore allocate an appropriate amount of resources to this challenge. Member States seriously affected by youth unemployment should allocate resources of the ESF to support youth employability.

(23) Efficient and effective implementation of actions supported by the ESF depends on good governance and partnership between all actors at the relevant territorial levels and the socio-economic actors, in particular the social partners and civil society. It is therefore essential that Member States encourage the participation of social partners and civil society in the implementation of the ESF. Member States that have received a country-specific recommendation in this area should allocate resources of the ESF to promote the capacity building of social partners and civil society organisations.]

(24) Taking into account the special characteristics and constraints of the outermost regions, the Member States should include in their Chapter for outermost regions, measures for enhancing employment and labour mobility, in particular for young people, education and skills, social inclusion.

(25) Since the objective of this Regulation, namely enhancing the effectiveness of labour markets and promoting access to quality employment, improving access to and the quality of education and training, promoting social inclusion and health and reducing poverty cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States but can rather, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve that objective