National Action Plans

The NAP Social Inclusion as an element of the Open Method of Coordination.

Since 2001, all members of the European Union regularly draw up a National Action Plan for Social Inclusion, known in Belgium as ‘NAPIncl’. They thus comply with the guidelines of the European Union. In practice, NAPincls are one of five instruments of a cooperation method between the member states called the ‘Open Method of Coordination’ (OMC), established following a European top conference that took place in Lisbon in March 2000. At his conference, the European Council requested the contribution of the member states to achieve, by 2010, the following objectives:

• To increase economic growth promoting sustainable development
• To increase employment and its quality
• To have a definitive impact on the eradication of poverty.

Each Member State can individually determine the measures which should lead to the realisation of these objectives. Nevertheless, certain discipline should be adhered to in order to favour agreement between the Member States. As such, the choice for the 3 political priorities of the NAPIncl 2006-2008 was influenced by the recommendations of the European Commission. The same applies to the statistical indicators, which are largely the same for all countries participating in the OMC.

Besides the Action Plans, the 4 other instruments of the OMC are the following:

• Common objectives aimed at eradicating poverty in Europe.
• Common indicators which allow for comparison of the situations in the different Member States.
• The joint reports of the European Commission which synthesize the individual reports of the Member States.
• A common action programme with which the European Commission can financially reward the exchange of good practices between the Member States.