Social measures in Europe are not enough to eliminate the risk of in-work poverty or the risk of poverty among the population in general, and in addition the situation is very uneven in the Member States.
The European Commission's report entitled "Social Protection Committee Annual Report 2025", published a few days ago, states that about half of the states recorded a noticeable decrease in the population at risk of poverty but a third recorded a noticeable increase in these citizens.
Reduction of unemployment benefits
The number of beneficiaries of unemployment benefit has increased in about half of the Member States, and in particular (in relative terms) in Austria, Croatia and the Netherlands. The number decreased in 7 countries, mainly Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia and Spain, and remained broadly unchanged in 3 Member States.
The number of beneficiaries of social assistance benefits has decreased in almost half of the Member States, with particularly significant decreases in Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia. In contrast, there have been increases in the number of beneficiaries of social assistance benefits in some countries (around one third), with particularly strong increases in Bulgaria and Spain.
There were nine countries where more than half of their total expenditure on social protection benefits was directed towards old-age benefit, with a peak of 59.2% in Italy, followed by Portugal (54.8%), Romania (53.2%) and Poland (52.7%).
In some cases, relatively high shares of expenditure may be linked to an ageing population. Apart from Ireland, where sickness/healthcare provision was the largest, the second highest level of expenditure on social protection benefits across all countries was on sickness/health care. Its share ranged from 45.0% in Ireland and 37.8% in Cyprus, to low 23.1% in Finland, 22.2% in Denmark and 22.1% in Italy.
Improvement in Cyprus as well
Other measures specifically target workers in certain sectors. For example, Belgium, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus have improved the status and/or social protection coverage of artists and other cultural professionals. Poland is preparing legislation that will allow professional artists to enter the social security system, with public funding to support their contributions.
As far as the self-employed are concerned, several recent measures extending official coverage have focused on family-related leaves. The right to maternity leave for self-employed women was granted by Greece and Germany, following the example of Italy in 2022.
Malta extended the right to paternity leave to the self-employed. Other important reforms include the extension of benefits related to accidents at work and occupational diseases to the self-employed in Cyprus, and to self-employed platform workers in Belgium, where platforms will have to insure them for accidents in the workplace.
Finally, some measures announced in the past, in particular in the context of the RRP (Recovery and Resilience Plan), have been delayed. For example, Cyprus has decided not to extend, at this stage, unemployment benefits to the self-employed, while Poland has not yet adopted its planned reform to provide comprehensive social protection to all workers subject to civil law contracts.
