Currently, the socialists of the European Parliament are up in arms against the European Commission for integrating the European Social Fund with the National Regional Plans and the Cohesion Fund in its proposed new budget. The European socialists are saying that this will amount to les social expenditure. Labour Party MEP Thomas Bajada even made it an issue and is dramatically sounding the alarm about this new proposal.
The opposition by the S&D against the EU Commission’s budget is still not very clear because EU funds do not fund social expenditure. Some of the existing initiatives in the European Social Fund can also be renewed through the other funds.
Malta received up to €124 million from the European Social Fund with more than half of this budget having gone to Lifelong Learning courses and education and skilling courses by Jobs+ for the unemployed and vulnerable groups. Only a very small percentage of these funds went to actual social expenditure which was part of social inclusion programmes for youth. The Maltese government financed up to €80.45 million of these projects. You can actually find the full and detailed budget breakdown of the expenditure here.
The proposed budget still makes reference to skilling and education, and there is a high probability that Malta can still use the funds in a similar under the NRP framework. What the European socialists may actually be fighting for then is for the European Commission to leave an emphasis on the European Social Fund as an exclusive political commitment. This is a political battle of the European socialists who want to steer EU expenditure into the social field.
At the same time, the EU Commission is also proposing to increase its budget for the Erasmus programme.
The EU is making steps to focus its budget on capital projects and investments while prioritising defence and infrastructure. The S&D MEPs are mostly not opposed to this direction with most of them having voted in favour of ReArm Europe. Malta’s Labour MEPs voted against with PN MEPs abstaining.
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