The recent resolution of the European Parliament on a future EU Anti-Poverty Strategy marks an important political moment. While the report describes the need for increased social investment, it still falls short on describing further how this paradigm shift could become a turning point to social inclusion, with direct effects to resilience and macroeconomic growth. This missing link comes at the risk of building the narrative of social investment as “expenses burden”, instead of unveiling its potential. An inclusive and sustainable well-being approach that encompasses life-course perspective to social services investment would greatly benefit the shift that the EU is calling for.
Th EU Anti-Poverty Strategy, which is not available yet but will be based on the European Parliament’s Report, rightly recalls the EU’s commitment under the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) Action Plan to reduce the number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion by at least 15 million by 2030, including at least 5 million children. It also warns that a paradigm shift associated to poverty and to adequate funding is crucial to ensure these targets can be met. What would be particular to such paradigm shift? Poverty is reiterated as a multidimensional phenomenon that requires integrated approach to several root causes, as well as multi level governance involvement in its policy design, including through the participation of people experiencing poverty.
As SWINS researchers, we believe that investment in accessible, high-quality services supports sustainable wellbeing in enabling people to access education, employment, and community life, reducing future public expenditure associated with crisis responses, institutionalisation, or long-term unemployment. It ultimately creates spillover effects for families, local economies, and labour markets that is crucial for conceiving an efficient set of initiatives to eradicate poverty, especially if we refer to targets ambitiously set for 2050.
From Fighting Poverty to Building Service Ecosystems
The Parliament report places strong emphasis on tackling child poverty in line with 2030 targets, besides addressing housing exclusion (including tailored services to homeless people), and breaking intergenerational cycles of poverty. It highlights integrated services as building blocks for tackling social exclusion and root causes of poverty. Equally important, it calls for mobilising multiple funding instruments under the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) as paramount to ensure sustainable allocation of resources to social protection, services of general economic interest and social policies supporting poverty eradication.
Breaking intergenerational poverty requires nevertheless more than targeted child-focused measures, but coherent and continuous investment in services across all stages of life, supporting entire families, older people and other groups that struggle overcoming the poverty line. Poverty is not a static condition confined to one stage of life, as it is often the result of cumulative disadvantages across the life course, which means that Early childhood deprivation, gaps in educational support, inadequate housing, barriers to healthcare, and limited access to employment services reinforce one another over time.
This is where a life-course framework shows how sustained investment in social services generates macro-level benefits in employment, social cohesion, and economic performance. Under this perspective, as we briefly describe in the first SWINS Policy Brief, social services are not residual safety nets but rather enabling systems that shape long-term trajectories.
While the resolution refers to social protection and activation measures, the upcoming Anti-Poverty Strategy would also benefit from a stronger emphasis on complementarities between income support, social services, and social policies. As an example, for young people and those affected by structural labour market changes, ALMPs must be closely linked to education, lifelong learning, and skills development programmes, but also ensuring access to childcare and housing as services and policies acting in synergy to support increased autonomy. This is particularly important in the green and digital transitions, where new skills requirements risk widening inequalities.
Recent research within the SWINS project further reinforces this point: its review of macro-regularities linking investment in social services with broader socio-economic outcomes shows how coordinated service ecosystems can support employment, income stability, and sustainable wellbeing over the life course (see SWINS Deliverable D5.1). By highlighting these structural relationships between service investment and economic performance, the findings provide additional evidence for placing integrated social services at the core of Europe’s anti-poverty agenda
Similarly, the Parliament highlights housing, older persons, gender inequalities, and pension gaps as priority domains. These challenges require a mix of policy instruments, including both income transfers and in-kind service provision. Personalised support services, community-based care, accessible housing solutions, and targeted employment assistance complement cash benefits and enhance their impact. A clear articulation of this mix of investments would strengthen the strategic coherence of the Anti-Poverty Strategy.
This sustainability dimension is particularly relevant in the context of the green and digital transitions, with direct effects to the design of just transition policies. Ensuring that social inclusion is embedded in just transition policies requires robust service ecosystems: accessible training and upskilling programmes, care services that enable labour market participation, housing renovation strategies that address energy poverty, and community-based support structures for vulnerable groups.
What’s next?
The European Commission will now formally assess and respond to the European Parliament’s resolution within the framework governing the preparation of the EU Anti-Poverty Strategy. This process will feed into the Commission’s legislative and policy planning cycle, with the Strategy expected to be presented during the current institutional mandate, and to significantly shape priorities under the next Multiannual Financial Framework (2028–2034).
The choices made in this phase will have long-lasting implications not only for social inclusion policies, but for the overall direction of Europe’s economic and social model. Embedding a sustainable wellbeing and social investment approach into the Strategy will therefore be decisive in strengthening resilience, labour market participation, and social cohesion — outcomes that are critical for the stability and competitiveness of future markets well beyond the next EU term.
