Confronting the Challenges of Poverty and Social Exclusion: the Policy Agenda of the European Union

The volume includes studies devoted to more in–depth analysis of the disparities in terms of development between member states, with particular reference to the policies that have been established to face the challenges of poverty and of social exclusion, aggravated all the more by the financial crisis. The article by Angela D’Orazio and Daniele Ietri explores in depth the concepts of poverty and exclusion and ponders whether such notions should be defined in terms of the territorial scale in question. It is from this aspect that the ambiguity of these concepts derives, not only in the EU’s statistical documents but also in the planning and implementation of social policies. In fact what is considered to be “exclusion” in a certain geographical area might not be considered “exclusion” in another, and the same applies for poverty. Moreover both poverty and social exclusion might have different patterns at EU regional or urban levels, which need to be addressed with specific policies. Besides, since 2000, in the European Union the concept of poverty has been accompanied by the prefix “at risk of ”, underlining the likelihood that a European citizen might actually become poor. According to the authors, this prefix, despite a general disagreement among member countries, opened up possibilities for measuring in a more effective way conditions of poverty in the EU. On this conceptual basis they sketch out an illustration of the current situation of poverty and social exclusion in the European Union, followed by a critical discussion on the European action plans to combat poverty, from the 1972 until the EU 2020 strategy. It is worthwhile to stress the analysis carried out on the increasing awareness of the spatial dimension of EU policy that has been produced by the complex dynamics of the regionalisation of policy and politics, linked to the rise of multi–level governance and the notion of territorial cohesion.