Call for a child-centred EU budget
Joint reaction to the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) Proposal by the Child Rights Action Group.
The next European Union (EU) long-term budget has the potential to invest in every child in Europe and beyond by tackling child poverty and upholding their rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) – ensuring these rights are protected, respected, and actively promoted. As organisations working on children’s rights, we call on the EU to invest in all children, everywhere.
Therefore, we recommend the following:
- Adopt a rights-based and child-centred EU budget.
- Track investment in children and introduce a “child lens investing” approach across all EU funding instruments, by creating a transparent “child marker”.
- Ensure meaningful, inclusive and safe participation of children and organisations representing them.
- Allocate sufficient funds to social objectives and invest in eradicating child and family poverty.
- Continue to invest in preventing, responding to and combating violence against children.
- Uphold child protection standards above security and migration management considerations.
- Ensure that investment spending on EU external action prioritises the needs of children, particularly children living in crisis contexts.
