European Social Fund 2014-2020 finally adopted

The Council (COREPER of 17 October) has finally agreed with the European Parliament on the European Social Fund regulation, setting part of the framework for European regional cohesion policy for the next seven years. The ESF supports thousands of projects linked to crucial stakes for the sector such as tackling early-school leaving or implementing validation systems; the ESF 2014-2020 will dedicate a whole thematic objective to education and training. Almost thirty sessions of interinstitutional negotiations were needed to reach an agreement, mostly focused lately on the Youth Employment Initiative; yet no agreement has been found yet on whether or not the ESF should account for 25% of the total cohesion policy budget. Now Member States are elaborating their Operational Programmes to concretise the next ESF and EUCIS-LLL has insisted in particular on the respect of the European Code of Conduct on Partnerships supposed to involve various stakeholders in the design and implementation of the future Fund.