Welcome to our first edition of Spotlight!

Hello, Spotlight reader!

Welcome to the very first edition of OPP’s Spotlight – your free, twice-monthly newsletter, curated and compiled by our Brussels-based policy team.

We’re all excited to be part of this new publication. Spotlight is our opportunity to share the latest intelligence and insights on core policy developments. Get ready for coverage and analysis of a broad range of timely topics. We love to translate complex EU policy issues into easy-to-digest articles, timelines, infographics and more.

Speaking of timely, the much-anticipated State of the Union Speech takes place tomorrow. Our Head of Policy, Igor, has prepared a brief to guide you through the main stakes. Spoiler alert: it mentions Russia, China, energy security and much else.

The Speech is one of four key issues we tackle in Spotlight #1. Our sustainability specialists have prepared a timeline of upcoming milestones for ‘Fit for 55’, to help you navigate this dense package. They have also teamed up with our agrifood experts to explore and break down the future of carbon farming policies in the EU. Finally, we offer you a glimpse of the OPP platform’s content on the Care Package recently adopted by the Commission. 

Before we get on to the policy, we’d like to introduce ourselves properly (just in case you don’t know us already). We are One Policy Place’s policy team. We spend our days, and sometimes evenings, at events in Brussels or combing through the work of institutions, agencies and stakeholders.

Our job is to monitor, analyse and curate information for the OPP digital platform – providing EU policy people with rapid access to the right intelligence. Because the whole team is based in Brussels, we are always in tune with what’s happening on the ground. Over the coming months, we will be taking turns to introduce Spotlight editions and walk you through our exclusive content.

We hope you enjoy Spotlight #1 – and find its content insightful. If any of these topics are relevant to your friends, colleagues, members or clients, please feel free to share Spotlight with them. It’s easy to subscribe for future editions using the button below.

Have a nice read! 

The OPP Policy Team
Igor, Elissa, An-Minh, Asher, Carlos, Alejandra, Alba, Fakhria, Marie, Stephen, Audrey, Josh, Dorin, and Magdalena

New EU Care Strategy: What you need to know

Is it possible to ensure quality, affordable and accessible care services while improving working conditions and tackling gender stereotypes? The Commission set out its plan to do just that in the new European Care Strategy, published last week. Check out this excerpt from the state of play update in the OPP Policy Pipeline: 

The Commission presented its new European Care Strategy on 7 September, setting out a vision of how care should be provided in the EU. The Strategy addresses both carers and care receivers, from childcare to long-term care, while also taking into account lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, the Strategy aims to improve the situation for both care receivers and the people caring for them, whether professionally or informally, by improving working conditions and establishing a better work-life balance for carers as well as setting out an agenda to boost access to quality, affordable and accessible care services. 

The Strategy includes two proposals for Council recommendations which respond to concrete proposals of the Conference on the Future of Europe. First, the recommendation on the revision of the Barcelona targets on childcare sets targets for 2030, including increasing the percentage of children under 3 years of age participating in early childhood education and care from 30% to 50%. The target for children between the age of 3 and the starting age of compulsory education participating in early childhood education and care will also increase from 90% to 96%. 

Second, the recommendation on access to long-term care focuses on improving the adequacy of social protection and providing a balanced mix of long-term care services in all care settings. It will also address the challenges faced by vulnerable groups of workers, tackle skills and labour shortages, support informal carers and improve fiscal sustainability.

The Commission's proposals for Council recommendations will be discussed by Member States and adopted in the Council. For each recommendation, the Commission will publish an in-depth report within five years to give an overview of the state of play of the implementation.