RREUSE advocates for a comprehensive EU Anti-Poverty Strategy that emphasises the importance of supporting social service providers in the social economy. Many social enterprises face challenges in securing public funding due to a lack of understanding of their operational model and complex or flawed eligibility criteria to fund anti-poverty actions.
Member States often adopt a narrow interpretation of services of general economic interest (SGEI). Despite the EC 2011 SGEI Decision specifically further recognising social services, such as work integration for underrepresented groups, as SGEI, national authorities typically use lower thresholds, if any, to support social economy entities combating poverty.
Difficulties are not limited to interpretation. Namely, in Austria, reuse and repair social enterprises have faced ineligibility for public funding, reportedly because their social mission is intertwined with environmental protection. In Finland, a country known for its robust welfare system, budget cuts severely jeopardise wage subsidies for the employment of underrepresented groups.
This situation threatens the capacity of many social enterprises to fulfil their antipoverty missions as well as endangering their existence. In the public consultation, we put forward the following recommendations:
