The New EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child: Ideas for Development

Abstract

Under the conditions of today the citizens of the European Union face different and complex challenges in terms of economic crises, political, environmental and social change. If we add these challenges to the recent uncertainty (before the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty) about the institutional development of the Union, the debate about the future of Europe becomes very topical. Despite of the importance of the challenges the EU faces today its future has rarely been discussed from the point of view of its around 94 million citizens under the age of 18. This means from the perspective of every fi fth European citizen. In the last few years, the visibility of children’s issues at EU level has grown signifi cantly. Some actions related directly to children have been taken, for example in the fi eld of child poverty, social inclusion, child protection, etc. There is also a common understanding that children may be negatively affected by the impact of EU policies of which they are not the primary target, for instance in the fi eld of employment or environmental policies. All this led in 2006 to the publication of the Commission’s Communication entitled “Towards an EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child”. Nevertheless a number of obstacles currently remain in developing a coherent EU approach: the legal basis for child policy in primary EU law is relatively limited; children’s interests are fairly invisible at EU level; opportunities for child participation are very limited; current action is fragmented and lacks co-ordination. A way forward to address some of these challenges is the elaboration of an integrated EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child.