Ahead of the discussions on the Council Recommendation on the Revision of the Barcelona targets on Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and on Access to Affordable High-quality Long-term Care, Eurodiaconia sent a letter to Social Attaches calling to adopt ambitious recommendations, not water down their content and move swiftly to implement the reforms laid out in this framework.

Concretely, on the Barcelona Targets Recommendation, our network is highly concerned by the introduction of dynamic targets for those Member States that have not reached the original ECEC target. With those targets, only an overall 7% increase in ECEC participation would be achieved, with 16 countries out of 27 exempted of reaching the 45% target. Therefore, we urge Member States to maintain the Commission’s proposal on a new target establishing the percentage of children under 3 years old participating in ECEC to reach 50%.

Regarding the Long-term Care Recommendation, we believe that to monitor progress and allow for proper coordination and implementation, the submission of national action plans and the designation of national coordinators is of key importance. Therefore, we call on Member States to maintain the Commission’s recommendation in this regard.

You can read the full letter here.