BRUSSELS — The European Commission will on Wednesday ask EU countries to eradicate poverty, arguing that governments can access the money to act if they use existing EU funds more effectively.
The plan, set out in the Commission’s first anti-poverty strategy and seen by POLITICO, will urge governments to better coordinate national policies, engage young people, support those living paycheck to paycheck and review protections for older and other vulnerable people.
But for now the strategy comes without a fresh cash injection — and critics say the effort won’t succeed unless the EU backs it with targeted funding and gives the Commission a stronger role to ensure capitals follow through.
The proposal lands as cost-of-living pressures remain high on the political agenda across Europe, after far-right parties made gains in Germany’s federal election and France’s municipal elections by campaigning on frustration over housing, wages and public services.
“People experiencing poverty are too often left unheard and unsupported, and that fuels a growing distrust in public policies that do protect them. The far right exploits this gap,” said Socialist EU lawmaker Marit Maij, vice-chair of the European Parliament’s Intergroup on Fighting Against Poverty.
Karin Johansson, who has experienced poverty and works at a community center supporting homeless people in Nyköping, Sweden, said governments’ failure to tackle the issue has left some young people alienated.
“A lot of young men are saying goodbye to the Swedish society because they don’t have any trust in it. And it shows — shootings, explosions, the mafia is skyrocketing,” said Johansson, who is also an executive committee member at the European Anti-Poverty Network NGO. The far right “are affecting everything, and they don’t want the society to be stable. They want the societies to be in havoc all the time.”
The Commission will present the strategy on Wednesday alongside proposals to address child poverty, housing exclusion and the rights of people with disabilities.
“When people cannot afford housing, food, care, education or a stable life, our societies become weaker, and trust is damaged,” said Commission Executive Vice President Roxana Mînzatu, who will unveil the measures. “Europe needs a stronger, more coordinated response … One that prevents poverty, supports those already affected, and turns social commitments into real results for people.”
Funding fight
The Commission’s case is that the money already exists, but national governments are not using it effectively.
The draft proposal for the bloc’s next long-term budget includes around €100 billion for social policies that can be used for anti-poverty strategies, up from €50 billion that was previously available under the European Social Fund Plus, said an EU official familiar with the plans, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the unreleased strategy. The problem is that capitals have not made good use of money already available to them, the official said.
“Progress has been slow and we need to recognize that,” the official said, adding that preventing radicalization and “maintaining faith in the EU” are “definitely a part” of what is driving Brussels to push governments on poverty prevention and alleviation.
The plan will “give member states additional tools to do the work,” the official said, describing it as a starting point before more concrete proposals over the next year.
But critics say it is cash more than tools that the capitals need.
The EU’s priority “must be to deliver concrete measures and targeted funding,” said MEP Marie Toussaint, a member of the Parliament’s Intergroup on Fighting Against Poverty. “The European Commission must play a leading role in ensuring delivery, rather than leaving implementation solely to member states.”
“There is no strategy without money,” said Juliana Wahlgren, director of the European Anti-Poverty Network. “How are we going to implement it if, funding-wise, this is not a priority?”
Poverty target slipping
The EU wants to reduce the number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion by at least 15 million from 2019 to 2030, and eradicate it by 2050.
That target was set in 2021. But by 2025, that number had fallen by just 3.4 million, according to the draft of the strategy seen by POLITICO. Across the bloc in 2025, 20.9 percent of the population was at risk of poverty, down only marginally since 2019, when it stood at 21.1 percent.
The picture varies sharply across the bloc. Romania and Bulgaria have reduced the share of people at risk of poverty by around a third over the past decade, while some of the EU’s richest countries have moved in the opposite direction.
The Covid-19 pandemic reversed a trend of falling poverty numbers in France, Austria and Germany, among others. In those countries, the share of people at risk of poverty was higher in 2025 than it was a decade earlier. In Germany, the share rose from 17.3 percent in 2019 to 21.2 percent last year. Support for the far-right Alternative for Germany also grew significantly over that period, with the biggest jump after the 2016 migration crisis.
For people experiencing poverty, the problem is not only whether support exists, but whether they can get it.
“It’s very difficult to access some benefits because of the bureaucracy, the system itself, it is very hard to navigate,” said Ema Popovici, a person experiencing poverty and project assistant for the Bucovina Institute NGO in Romania.
The EU should engage with people experiencing poverty, Popovici said, “because they can report the reality of what’s happening. Because on paper, again it can be declared that the strategy is going very well and we have solutions and so on, but in reality it doesn’t work. So we need people going outside and speaking with people.”
