The EU Anti-Poverty Strategy: a pillar of social and economic resilience

Background

Poverty and social exclusion remain significant challenges across the European Union.  In 2025, just below 93 million people in the European Union were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, including a large number of children and families. The figure is equivalent to 21% of the of the Union’s population. Economic shocks, rising living costs, housing pressures, and labour market inequalities have increased the vulnerability of many households.

Following the launch of the new EU Anti-Poverty Strategy on 6th May 2026, this webinar arrives at a critical moment for European social policy. This flagship initiative provides a decisive framework for future interventions, but its success hinges on its capacity to deliver through integration into the European Semester and its ability to put forward a holistic ecosystemic vision of poverty as a phenomenon requiring cross-sectoral responses. Through the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan, the EU has committed to reducing the number of people at risk of poverty by at least 15 million by 2030. The new Strategy must give new these initiatives fresh impetus by leveraging:

• the European Child Guarantee, acting as a laboratory for innovation, by creating multi-agency initiatives that support children within their family systems;
• the European Social Fund Plus, which finances programmes to combat poverty and support families in vulnerable situations such as single parents and family carers of children with disabilities;
• the European Semester, the primary vehicle for ensuring the Strategy’s capacity to deliver by coordinating social and economic policies designed to improve work-life balance for women and men, access to early childhood education and care, long-term care and social protection;

Preventing family poverty

Poverty is rarely an individual issue – it is experienced within families and across the life course. To address the multidimensional nature of poverty, effective anti-poverty strategies should move beyond sectorality to dismantle policy silos and foster multisectoral coordination.

Not all households are in the same financial situation nor possess the same resilience characteristics. Families, as structural units, shape poverty dynamics through their composition, internal organisation, and the solidarity bonds they uphold. Drawing from the COFACE position paper on prevention of family poverty, we advocate for a balanced policy mix founded on the four pillars of Resources, Services, Time, and Governance (RSTG).

To effectively address poverty and social exclusion, COFACE believes policies must adopt a family-centred lens, recognising households as interdependent systems where vulnerabilities intersect and compound across generations. A narrow focus on individuals risks obscuring the relational dynamics of poverty – how precarity transfers between family.

Objectives of the webinar

National and European civil society organisations and family associations play a crucial role in ensuring that policies respond to the real needs of families and effectively reach those most at risk of poverty. This COFACE webinar aims to explore how the new EU anti-poverty strategy can move from a generic description of poverty to a poignant, actionable framework. The discussions will:

• Provide an overview of the EU anti-poverty framework and its capacity for integration into the European Semester;
• Examine how EU initiatives drive innovation through multi-agency coordination to address poverty among families and children;
• Foster dialogue between EU institutions, policymakers, researchers, and family organisations on the need for holistic, cross-sectoral responses;
• Identify policy priorities using the COFACE RSTG pillars (Resources, Services, Time, Governance) to better support families facing poverty.

Programme

With speakers from the European Commission, European Parliament and European civil society, we will take a closer look at this recent package of EU social measures proposed to strengthen the fight against poverty. See the full programme here.

Child participation

Children are welcome to participate in COFACE webinars. These webinars are set up with child safeguarding in mind to ensure they are a safe and inclusive space for child participation.

Registrations

Register for the webinar here