The OMC in Social Inclusion
The social inclusion OMC, by contrast, was not directly linked to the EMU debate. Social inclusion was for many years a controversial topic to address at the European level due to the subsidiarity concept. In 1999 the Commission finally adopted a communication for a concerted strategy on social protection, proposing a Social Protection Committee which was made official in the Nice Treaty. Said committee was responsible for the initial standard setting exercise. Next, each member state was asked to benchmark its situation by producing a two year national action plan (NAP or NAPincl), presenting national-level strategies for improving the situation. These were made available in June 2001. 18 months later the EU released a joint report on social inclusion where the member state’s approaches were compared and contrasted and recommendations were given. While the NAPs form a first level of action, the Community Action Programme to combat poverty and social exclusion, which aims to improve cooperation between the member states, can be considered the second level of action.
In the social inclusion OMC some funds were made available for NGOs and consequently its "inclusive" approach to civil society has been favourably commented upon. However, this is not necessarily the case for other OMCs. According to FEANTSA (2005), the Pensions OMC is more closed and involves mainly the Commission and national civil servants.
Read more about this topic: Open Method Of Coordination
Famous quotes containing the words social and/or inclusion:
“It is thus that the few rare lucid well-disposed people who have had to struggle on the earth find themselves at certain hours of the day or night in the depth of certain authentic and waking nightmare states, surrounded by the formidable suction, the formidable tentacular oppression of a kind of civic magic which will soon be seen appearing openly in social behavior.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)
“Belonging to a group can provide the child with a variety of resources that an individual friendship often cannot—a sense of collective participation, experience with organizational roles, and group support in the enterprise of growing up. Groups also pose for the child some of the most acute problems of social life—of inclusion and exclusion, conformity and independence.”
—Zick Rubin (20th century)