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121 mln people in EU at risk of poverty or social exclusion: UN expert

Xinhua, June 3, 2016 Adjust font size:

Recent austerity policies are hitting the most vulnerable and are undermining economic, social and labour rights within the European Union (EU), a UN independent expert warned on Friday.

Immediately after his fact-finding visit to EU institutions in Brussels, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, UN Special Rapporteur on the effects of foreign debt and human rights, stressed that poverty has been on the rise in one of the most affluent regions of the world.

He pointed our that about 121 million people in the EU are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, and their number has in particular increased in countries that underwent a financial crisis and structural adjustment, such as Greece and Spain.

"I am concerned about a policy shift undermining the previously balanced approach of ensuring economic stability, equality and social cohesion, in favor of a disproportionate focus on budgetary stability," he noted.

According to the Rapporteur, it is unlikely that the EU will reach in 2020 its official target to reduce the number of people at-risk-of poverty and social exclusion by 20 million people.

He also noted that there are around 21.4 million unemployed persons in the EU, 4.7 million more than in 2008, before the financial crisis spread.

The UN expert highlighted that "when making policy recommendations or setting binding conditionalities for providing loans, EU institutions and bodies have to respect international human rights treaties to which all their Member States have become a party."

At the same time, the UN Expert welcomed the announcement by the President of the European Commission that all future adjustment programmes supported by the Commission should be assessed on their social impact.

"This is a step in the right direction," he stated, adding that economic reform programmes and the annual country specific recommendations issued by the European Commission should not only be based on economic and social indicators, but also be assessed on their human rights impact.

The Independent Expert will present his final findings and key recommendations in a comprehensive report to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2017. Endit