Poverty and social exclusion in the context of the strategy „Europe 2020”: progress of implementation

Abstract

The aim of the article is to evaluate progress in achieving the „Europe
2020” target concerning the reduction of the number of people living in
poverty or social exclusion at the middle of the Strategy’s duration. The
additional aim is to evaluate progress in achieving the national targets. We
formulate a hypothesis that the EU-wide „Europe 2020” target concerning
the reduction of the number of people living in or at risk of poverty or social
exclusion by 20 million was too ambitious, and that the probability of its
implementation in the set time limits is very low. To verify this hypothesis
a statistical data analysis methods have been used, as well as Ward’s agglomeration
method. The conducted analyses show that the Strategy’s EU-wide
target was too high and unreasonable. Many of the national targets are also
proved to be too ambitious.