EU policies and instruments in Early Childhood Development
EU Treaties
According to Article 2 of the consolidated version of the Treaties as amended by the Treaty of Lisbon, the Union must assure the “protection of the rights of the child” and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights reinforces this by describing children’s rights to education, protection and care as well as prohibition of child labour (Articles 24 and 32), in line with the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, EU-level competence is (mostly) limited to policy co-ordination of member states’ policies since the principle of national sovereignty (subsidiarity) still prevails in these areas.
Childcare and the Barcelona Targets
In 2002 member states agreed on the Barcelona Targets, which stated that by 2010 childcare should be provided to at least 33 per cent of children under three years of age and to at least 90 per cent of children between three years old and the mandatory school age. This was prompted by concerns about gender equality, removing obstacles to women accessing the labour market, and enabling families to better reconcile work and family life. These targets were not reached in 2010 and the Council has recently prompted member states to further take action on this field.
Children’s Education
The Education and Training 2020 framework sets a new target: in 2020, at least 95% of children between 4 years old and the age for starting compulsory primary education should participate in early childhood education.
In March 2010 the European Council agreed on the Europe 2020 Strategy which will serve as a policy framework for all EU actions and aims at achieving smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in Europe. Within its ten integrated guidelines (six relate to economic policies and four to employment policies), Guideline 9 has the objective of “Improving the performance of education and training systems at all levels”, including in early childhood education.
The Commission and Council of the European Union have recently pressed Member States to co-operate on Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) to widen accessibility and quality, namely by creating systems that integrate both care and education, and by facilitating the transition of young children between family and education/care. This should be achieved through a joint vision and collaboration amongst different sectors as well as through the development of reference tools supporting policy developments in the field of ECEC.
Children’s Rights
The 2011 EU Agenda for the Rights of the Child aims to reinforce the commitment of the EU to promote, protect and fulfil the rights of the child in all relevant EU policies and actions. It set out eleven actions where the EU can contribute effectively to promote children’s well-being and safety. These include actions to increase protection of vulnerable children, promote use of the EU structural funds for Roma children, and combat all forms of violence against children.
The Social Investment Package
The Social Investment Package for Growth and Social Cohesion (SIP) was adopted in 2013. It stressed the need for EU member states to put greater emphasis on social investment, partly as a response to what critics have called a bias towards ‘austerity policies’. Advocates argue that its provisions will benefit individual well-being and help the EU emerge from the current economic and social crisis.
The SIP calls for greater provision of childcare, early education and health services and calls for social protection systems to respond to people’s needs adequately, particularly during critical moments in the life-course. Overall, it argues that hardships later on in life can be prevented through greater investment in early childhood and care.
Child Poverty
In 2011 the Council presented its Conclusions on Tackling Child Poverty and Promoting Child Well-being. This invited member states to take a multi-level approach to tackling child poverty, including employment for parents, income support, access to education, social services (including childcare) and health services. The Commission, for its part, was invited to consider child poverty and well-being as one of the priorities of the social dimension of the Europe 2020 Strategy and to to put forward a Recommendation on child poverty and well-being.
The European Commission Recommendations, Investing in Children: Breaking the Cycle of Disadvantage, were published in 2013 as part of a ambitious package promoting the need for Member States to approach Social protection as an investment and a prerequisite for growth and competitiveness.
This proposed common principles on issues such as parental access to the labour market, adequate levels of income support, investment in early education and care, provision of adequate housing, and participation of children in activities out of hours as ways to improve the living conditions and reduce inequalities faced by disadvantaged children. Moreover, the Recommendation requested that obstacles to accessing health care be examined and broken down, and that preventative social and health services be strengthened.
Overall, the Recommendation supports Member States’ efforts to develop better policies while sending a clear signal that investing in children and families is essential not only in terms of fairness but also for Europe’s economic and social future.
The Environment
Outside EU institutions (though with their support), the World Health Organisation Europe is implementing the Children´s Environment and Health Action Plan. The programme envisages improving children´s health through healthy environments with clean water, adequate physical activity, safer roads, good quality air and reduced exposure to hazardous chemicals.
Statistics
Having up-to-date, accurate and comparable statistics is vital for understanding differences between regions and countries, the impact of policies, and development of future strategies.
Eurostat presents comprehensive data on participation in early childhood education, formal child care and at-risk-of-poverty rate of households with at least one dependent child. The Open Method of Coordination (OMC) on Social Inclusion and Social Protection offers four divided strands of indicators: overarching indicators; indicators of the social inclusion strand; indicators of the pension strand; and indicators of the health and long term care strand. The headline indicator for measuring progress in this domain is a target to ensure that at least 20 million people should be lifted out of the risk of poverty or social exclusion by 2020.
Furthermore, European Community health indicators (ECHI) include sets of data (tables, graphs, maps) on health status. Common indicators on the determinants and care in EU member countries allow for monitoring and comparison, and serve as a basis for policymaking based on best practices.
