The European Parliament voted a motion that includes Eurochild’s amendments

The motion includes key recommendation on the future of the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child and includes many of Eurochild’s proposed amendments.

On 11 March, the European Parliament voted a motion for the resolution on the EU Strategy on the rights of the child. The motion for the resolution is a non-legally binding text that expresses the Parliament’s opinion and could potentially influence the latest stage of its development. The document highlights a number of key recommendations and the European Commission is expected to consider them before launching the Strategy.

At Eurochild we are glad to see that many of the amendments we proposed are now part of the document, such as:

• The importance of early childhood education and care in ensuring equal opportunities and combatting discrimination (Rec.C)
• Children’s right to participate in democratic life and in decisions that directly or indirectly affect them and the need to embed rights-based child participation in policy-making at the EU, national and local levels (Rec.V, Art.39)
• The necessity for Member States to allocate enough resources to address structural inequalities and prioritise investments in children and for effective implementation of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (Art.5)
• The necessity for Member States to set up Child Guarantee National Action Plans (Art.16)
• The importance to ensure a child-friendly system with appropriate and inclusive proceedings which take into account the needs of children (Art.20)
• The necessity to collect disaggregated and specific data on national investments in children (Art.36)

Read the full text of the motion.

Both the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child and the Child Guarantee are expected to be published on the 24 March.