Policy brief on the ESF+ for 2021-2027 - Eurocities
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Policy brief on the ESF+ for 2021-2027
April 2020
Basics about the ESF
The European Social Fund (ESF) is the main EU instrument to invest in people. For 60 years
now, the ESF has been promoting employment, improving skills and fostering social inclusion.
It is estimated that the Fund helps 10 million people every year to get (back) into work,
improve their skills or get out of poverty and social exclusion to fully participate in society.
The ESF has legal basis in the Treaty1 as one of the EU Structural Funds aiming to strengthen
the EU’s economic, social and territorial cohesion and reduce disparities between regions.
Its goal is to “improve work opportunities and contribute to raising the standard of living”.
For cities, the ESF is a major source of funding for active inclusion and integration measures,
insertion on the labour market, vocational training and skills provision. A recent EUROCITIES
study2 shows that ESF has brought tangible results in cities: better access to jobs, schools,
training, housing and social care for vulnerable groups, leading to improved social cohesion.
The ESF budget for 2021-2027
The ESF budget is part of the 7-year multiannual financial framework of the EU (MFF). As
per Commission’s proposal for the MFF 2021-2027 published on 2 May 20183, the ESF remains
under the cohesion thematic priority, but placed under the new heading ‘Investing in people,
social cohesion and values’. This shows the Commission’s intention to strengthen synergies
between the ESF and Erasmus+, European Solidarity Corps, Asylum and Migration Fund,
Horizon Europe and Digital Europe. While there was a risk that the Commission might opt to
take ESF out of cohesion policy to keep the fund unaffected by the cuts in cohesion policy,
it has decided to keep ESF in cohesion policy and common provisions for the next 7 years.
The proposed budget for the new ESF for 2021-2027 is €101.2 billion (€89.688 billion at 2018
prices). This shows an increase of 21% compared to 2014-2020, despite the 7% cut in cohesion
policy. However, this is mostly due to merging several programmes that were previously
under different funding lines. In this way, the ESF+ is to keep a share of 23% of the cohesion
policy budget and 8% of the total EU budget, as in the 2014-2020 period.
New ESF gets a plus
The European Commission published its proposal for the regulation on the ESF+ on 30 May
20184. It aims to make the ESF more flexible and simpler by merging several programmes:
▪ The European Social Fund (ESF) and the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI)
▪ the Fund for the European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD)
▪ the Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) programme)
▪ the Health programme
1 Articles 162-164, 174, 175 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
2 EUROCITIES, February 2018. Boosting employment and social inclusion in EU cities: Lessons learned from cities
experiences with the European Social Fund in 2014-2017.
3 European Commission Communication on the Multiannual Financial Framework for 2021-2027. COM(2018) 321
4 European Commission proposal for a Regulation on the ESF+, COM(2018) 382 finalThe proposed ESF+ would be structured in three strands:
1. ESF strand 2. EaSi strand 3. Health strand
Integrated ESF, YEI & FEAD EaSi programme Health programme
€100 billion €761 million €413 million
shared management direct & indirect management direct management
Merging these funds is intended to strengthen synergies and avoid duplication and overlaps
while enabling a more integrated and targeted support to respond to the social and labour
market challenges that people in Europe face today.
ESF+ priorities
The goal is to use the ESF+ to help build a more social Europe by aligning the funding with
EU policy priorities and process. To achieve this, the ESF+ will support implementation of:
▪ The European Pillar of Social Rights. The 20 principles will guide the actions under ESF+
to support investments in people and systems in employment, education and social policy.
▪ The social and employment priorities of the European Semester. The ESF+ will support
member states to invest in employment, education, health and social policy reforms in
line with the country-specific recommendations (CSRs) and employment guidelines. How?
Member states will have to allocate an ‘adequate amount from national ESF+ resources’
to implement policy responses to challenges identified in the European Semester process.
In addition, the ESF+ is expected to also contribute to the mainstream objectives of a
smarter Europe and a greener, low carbon Europe via skills development and job creation.
General objectives: The ESF+ aims to support member states to achieve high employment
levels, fair social protection and a skilled and resilient workforce by ensuring equal
opportunities, access to the labour market, fair working conditions, social inclusion and high
level of health protection.
ESF+ has 11 specific objectives:
better access to employment
lifelong learning, up- and re-skilling
modernise labour market systems active inclusion, equal opportunities
better work-life balance, access integration of migrants and Roma
to childcare, active healthy ageing
equal access to affordable services
education & training systems
access to quality and inclusive social integration of people at risk
education and training
food and material assistance
2What is new?
▪ Stronger link to the European Semester: member states are asked to ‘concentrate’ the
ESF+ resources to address the challenges identified in the European Semester (CSRs)
while in 2014-2020 they were asked just to ‘ensure consistency’ with them. No threshold
is set anymore (vs. 60-80% in 2014-2020) but an ‘appropriate amount’.
▪ Some new priorities: there are many more specific objectives for ESF+ (11 vs. 4 in ESF
2014-2020) due to an aggregation of the previously overlapping priorities of the different
funds merged. Notably, some new topics were added: working poor, health inequalities
and work-life balance. Some topics are not new but are more prominent than before:
social economy, skills forecasting, digital skills, early childhood education and care.
▪ Higher earmark for social inclusion: The minimum share that each member state should
allocate for social inclusion was increased from 20% to 25%. A new earmark of 2% to
address material deprivation was added.
▪ New earmark for youth employment: Member states with NEET rates above EU average
need to allocate min. 10% of their ESF+ resources to support youth employment actions.
▪ Migrant integration: ESF+ will support long-term integration of third-country nationals
(legally residing migrants) while short-term measures remain under AMF.
▪ Innovative actions: each member state needs to dedicate at least one priority to support
actions of social innovation and social experimentation or bottom-up approaches based
on partnerships involving public authorities, private sector and civil society such as the
Local Action Groups in Community-Led Local Development (CLLD). Innovative approaches
developed under the EaSi strand can be upscaled under ESF+. A maximum of 5% of the
national ESF+ allocation with 95% co-financing rate can be allocated to this (Art 13).
▪ Mid-term review: following an initial programming of 5 years, a mid-term review will
allow for re-allocation of resources for the last 2 years.
European Parliament position
On 16 January, the European Parliament adopted in plenary the report on the ESF+. MEPs
agreed in plenary to increase the money allocated to the ESF+ to €120 billion 2021- 2027.
This is equivalent to an increase of 19% in comparison to the previously proposed €101 billion
by the European Commission. The outcome of the vote is good news for a more social Europe
and a welcome incentive for a more ambitious implementation of the European Pillar of
Social Rights. The Parliament doubled the resources for youth employment and by
introducing a Child Guarantee of €5.9 billion.
Ahead of the vote in EMPL committee, EUROCITIES developed voting recommendations based
on our position paper adopted in October 2018 and engaged members in a coordinated lobby
action towards MEPs to ensure ESF+ will have a strong urban dimension. Both the committee
and plenary voting result have been favourable for cities. The EP report is an impressive
upgrade making 17 explicit references to the role of cities and local authorities compared
to the initial proposal of the Commission that had no mention at all about local authorities.
3Main results of EP vote compared to the Commission’s proposal:
• The role of local authorities is recognised explicitly: “ESF+ should support member
states' efforts at all levels of government, including at regional and local level”
• The partnership article calls explicitly on member states to ensure “partnership with
local and regional authorities”
• The link of ESF+ to cohesion policy is reinforced by providing for ESF+ to contribute to
the objectives of “a Union that is closer to citizens in view of tackling the socio-economic
inequalities in cities and regions”
• Explicit mention that ESF+ should support integrated territorial development
• Flexibility clause was introduced with reinforced territorial dimension of ESF+
mentioning explicitly that “Sufficient flexibility shall be ensured by managing authorities
to identify priorities for ESF+ in line with the specific local or regional challenges”
• Social innovation – a strong focus was introduced to give “special focus on promoting
the scaling up of local projects developed by cities, local and regional authorities, in the
field of reception and social inclusion and integration of third-country nationals”
Other important results of the EP vote are:
• Member states shall allocate at least 27% (instead of 25%) of ESF+ to social inclusion.
• Additionally, to the 27% for social inclusion, member states should allocate at least 3%
of their ESF+ for social inclusion of the most deprived and/or material deprivation.
• The co-financing rate of 85% for actions targeted at the social inclusion of people at risk
of poverty or social exclusion and material deprivation shall be maintained.
• The member states shall implement the European Child Guarantee (proposed by the
European Parliament) in order to contribute to children’s equal access to free care, free
education, decent housing and adequate nutrition.
• Fighting discrimination against and promoting the socio-economic integration of
marginalised communities such as the Roma shall be a new specific objective.
• Access to housing is new specific objective. The ESF+ shall also contribute to eradicating
energy poverty and promoting energy efficiency in buildings among vulnerable groups.
• The ESF+ shall contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
EU level negotiations
Trialogue negotiations between the European Parliament, European Commission and
member states started in autumn 2019 under the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the
EU. As of April 2020, there is still no agreement on EU budget for 2021-2027 (MFF).
The trialogue on ESF+ budget and priorities is also frozen for the moment. The European
Parliament’s rapporteur David Casa insisted that the EP should be able to negotiate all
aspects of ESF+ under co-decision and to negotiate on budgetary points.
However, the Council has no position on this, since it has only adopted a partial mandate,
pending progress on the negotiations related to the EU budget for 2021-2027.
4Here are the two institutional positions:
• The European Parliament is fully ready to negotiate ESF+. In its starting position,
adopted on 4 April 2019, the EP proposes that the allocation for social inclusion
should be increased from 25 % to 27%, assistance for the most deprived from 2% to
3% and youth employment from 10% to 15%. A key focus is to support disadvantaged
groups, increased accessibility for persons with disabilities and the Child Guarantee.
• Within the Council, the Friends of Cohesion, an alliance of 17 member states, pri-
marily from eastern and southern Europe, are fighting to maintain funding to cohe-
sion policy in relation to the current period 2014-2020. Read more here.
COVID-19 and MFF
The coronavirus crisis is expected to influence the negotiations on the multiannual financial
framework (MFF) for 2021-2027. The European Parliament is calling for fast-track in the
negotiations as well as asking the Commission to propose a contingency plan to enter into
force on 1 January 2021, considering the delays for a timely MFF agreement. The contingency
plan should also be able to address the immediate consequences of the Corona emergency,
in line with the positive steps taken in the 2020 budget in terms of re-orientation and re-
inforcements of existing EU funding under the Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative+.
In response, the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen announced that the
Commission will propose changes to the MFF proposal for the post-2020 EU budget to allow
to address the consequences of the coronavirus crisis. This might have implications for the
budget and priorities for the ESF+ 2021-2027. More details will follow in the months to come.
ESF+ programming starts in member states
While the financial envelope for the ESF+ is still to be decided at EU level, the managing
authorities at national level have started to prepare the operational programmes. The draft
programmes are expected to be ready by end of March or early April and then submitted for
consultation at regional or national level, under the partnership principle of cohesion policy.
The final operational programmes for ESF+ should be ready by the end of 2020.
What is EUROCITIES doing?
✓ We are gathering intelligence from the European Commission on the next steps in ESF+
programming and possible re-prioritisation in the aftermath of COVID-19 crisis
✓ We are building capacity of member cities in SAF to input and influence the operational
programmes for ESF+ 2021-2027 by sharing strategies on how to work and negotiate with
managing authorities on priorities, target groups and indicators, etc.
✓ We will send the key messages from the online city dialogue on 7 April to the European
Commission to discuss on how to improve ‘partnership with cities’ in ESF+ programming
✓ We plan a focus group on ESF+ at the SAF meeting in Zagreb in autumn (9-10 Nov 2020)
✓ We will keep updating members on EU and national developments on ESF+
This policy brief has received financial support from the European Union Programme for
Employment and Social Innovation "EaSI" (2014-2020). For further information please consult:
http://ec.europa.eu/social/easi
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