EU Programme for Employment and Social Innovation, report 2014

Comments and Research

While planned commitments for 2014 amounted to 119,5 million of euros, around 52 million of euros were actually used (44%)

Employment

 

 

According to the European Commission report the lower commitments can be explained by the fact that 2014 was the first year for the implementation of EaSI and many activities (worth about 63 million of euros) were postponed to the beginning of 2015.

EaSI programme

The European Union Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) aims to promote a high level of quality and sustainable employment, by combating social exclusion and poverty and improving working conditions.

The programme is structured into three axes:

  • the modernisation of employment and social policies with the PROGRESS axis (61% of the total budget);
  • job mobility with the EURES axis (18% of the total budget);
  • access to micro-finance and social entrepreneurship with the Microfinance and Social Entrepreneurship axis (21% of the total budget).

The total budget for 2014-2020 is EUR 919.469.000.

Results of the first year

25% of overall budget of the Progress axis was used in 2014 to produce different types of analytical outputs, such as studies, periodicals, databases, methodologies and classifications, and various other ad-hoc outputs.

38% of the overall budget under the Progress axis (13,9 million of euros) was used in 2014 to fund various information sharing and mutual learning activities, such as networks of experts, peer reviews, learning exchanges, trainings, Council Presidency and other conferences, seminars and high-level events, communication campaigns, meetings of policy-related bodies, good practice guides and educational material, and development and maintenance of information systems.

In 2014, 35 % of the overall budget under the Progress axis (12,6 million of euros) was used to improve capacities of EU and national organisations.

In 2014, 5,2 million of euros (33% of the overall budget under the EURES axis) was used to improving transparency of labour market information. Transparency of labour market information is being achieved through exchange and dissemination of available vacancies and applications at transnational, interregional and cross-border level. An important instrument to achieve this goal is the EURES Job Mobility Portal.

Activities under the third have not started in 2014, one of the reasons for this being the fact that the predecessor programme European Progress Microfinance Facility (Progress Microfinance) is still ongoing and will continue its activities until 2016.

In 2014, the Commission was negotiating the design of the new funding instruments with the European Investment Fund. More than 28,4 million of euros were set aside for the implementation of these instruments in the coming year. Financial instruments under EaSI will be modelled upon the previous experience with Progress Microfinance: guarantees and funding will be provided to financial intermediaries in order to foster their incentives to on-lend the money to final beneficiaries.

Link
Report

Photo credit: AstridWestvang / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND