Ahead of the Universal Children’s Day on 20 November, Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the Commission, Neven Mimica, Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, Dimitris Avramopoulos, Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Marianne Thyssen, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, Christos Stylianides, Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, Vera Jourova, Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, Tibor Navracsics, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, and Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Digital Society and Digital Economy made the following statement:

“The rights of the child are human rights. They are indivisible, universal and inalienable. As the European Union, we strive to protect and promote the rights of every child. It is our collective obligation and duty and a principle enshrined in the Treaty of the European Union.

A child is a child first and foremost. Every girl and every boy deserves a childhood and it is our responsibility, institutions and societies at large, to make sure that they are never deprived of this right – no matter their ethnicity, gender, religion, or, sometimes, the challenging living environments. No matter whether inside or outside the EU – no child should be left behind. Every voice should be heard.

Across the world, 16,000 children die every day, mostly from preventable or treatable causes. Every five minutes, a child dies as a result of violence in their homes, schools, and communities. Around the world, girls and boys are victims of sexual abuse, deprived of education and living in poverty. Worldwide, 152 million children are victims of child labour and more than 50 million have migrated or are forcibly displaced today. This is why we are working every day, on all fronts and around the world, to provide long-term, sustainable and positive change for children, to ensure their protection, to end violence against children in emergencies and to provide them with their right to education and offer perspectives for the future. Whilst the EU’s efforts are mobilised from the earliest onsets of a crisis – children’s rights and protection concern everyone. We will continue working with partner countries, international organisations, non-governmental organisations and civil society.

Through our humanitarian funding we have supported the education of over 4.7 million children in 50 countries. Projects bringing education to almost half a million Syrian children are under way. Through our development cooperation projects in Mauritania, we help to protect and reintegrate domestic child workers. In Colombia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, we are helping children impacted by armed violence. In addition, we have stepped up our action and made the protection of children in migration a top priority across all our actions.

Young people shape economic, democratic and societal change. We need to invest in their future and allow them to determine themselves the best solutions to the challenges ahead. This is why youth is the guiding theme of the upcoming African Union – European Union Summit. We need to ensure young people’s political participation and provide them with a platform to be “agenda-setters”.

Our children are the most vulnerable citizens in our societies. They are the present and the future of our world. We will stand up to our commitment and leave no child behind.”

Background

Worldwide, 152 million children are victims of child labour. Research shows that more than 80% of the children in orphanages are not orphans, but are placed there due to reasons such as poverty, disability, and marginalisation – or because of trafficking. And over 15% of the victims of trafficking in human beings registered in the EU in the period 2012 – 2014 are girls and boys.

Children are particularly vulnerable in conflict and crisis situations. Around the world, more than 50 million children have migrated across borders or been forcibly displaced. To the EU, more than 250,000 children arrived by sea to Greece and Italy in 2015. Out of 600,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, 60% are children, while the United Nations recorded at least 15,500 violations against children in armed conflict in 2016.

The EU is a world leader in providing humanitarian support for children, helping deliver food, water, sanitation, healthcare and protection. In Libya, we are giving special attention to work on school rehabilitation, non-formal education and on providing support to transitional care institutions for unaccompanied and separated children. In Jordan and Nicaragua, we address gender-based sexual violence. The EU’s commitment to support the provision of safe, inclusive and quality education in emergencies has reached 6% of the overall humanitarian aid budget in 2017, and will increase to 8% in 2018.

The EU actions at the external front are consolidated in the Guidelines on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of the Child, adopted by the EU Foreign Ministers in June 2017. The Guidelines provide practical guidance to strengthen the promotion and protection of children, support our partner countries in doing so and further strengthen cooperation with international organisations and civil society. Child protection is also a central priority in the European Agenda on Migration. In April 2017 the Commission put forward a set of actions to reinforce the protection of all migrant children at all stages of the process, including access to healthcare, education and legal assistance and a swift determination of their status to provide guardianship or facilitate family reunifications.

In this digital age, the EU is a key player in creating a child-friendly and protective environment in the digital sphere. In 2017, through the Better Internet for Kids Strategy, the EU has supported children to learn, express themselves and critically assess what they discover online in order to become responsible and resilient digital citizens.

For more information

Nearly 200 countries gathered at COP23, held in Bonn under the presidency of Fiji. The parties made concrete progress on turning the historic 2015 agreement into action on the ground across the world, ahead of next year’s UN climate conference in Katowice, Poland.

The Paris Agreement sets out a global framework for climate action and the necessary transition to a low-carbon future in order to limit global warming to well below 2°C. Under the Paris Agreement the EU has committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% till 2030 (1990 level).

As stated by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in his 2017 State of the Union address, the EU wants to remain the global leader in the fight against climate change. To re-affirm this commitment to ambitious climate action, President Juncker will lead the Commission delegation at the ‘One Planet Summit’ to be hosted by the French President Emanuel Macron, the United Nations and the World Bank in Paris on 12 December.

Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Cañete said: “The spirit of Paris is very much alive. We achieved progress in Bonn on the issues that were important to the EU, such as the Paris Work Program. But we must continue to build on this momentum in the coming months, because there is still a lot of work ahead of us before we meet in Katowice next year. The main objective must be to keep the world firmly on the path towards what was agreed two years ago in Paris.”

The EU again had a central role in brokering agreements during the two-week climate negotiations. As a sign of climate leadership the EU announced on Thursday that it intends to deposit the ratification instruments of the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol by the end of this year. The Doha Amendment concerns the second period of the Kyoto Protocol, which requires parties to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020. The EU has already exceeded its 2020 targets in 2016 by having decreased emissions by 23%. The decision to swiftly ratify the Doha Amendment demonstrates our commitment to the international climate action and shows that the EU makes good on its promises.

Concrete steps forward were also taken on the work program for implementing the Paris Agreement. Clarity on the design of the so called ‘Talanoa Dialogue’ (Facilitative Dialogue) has been achieved looking at how global climate action can be accelerated in the years to come. The Facilitative Dialogue next year will be the opportunity for political stock-taking for the parties on progress made on the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

COP23 also brought outcomes on a number of other key issues:

Facilitative (Talanoa)Dialogue

The design of the Talanoa Dialogue has been agreed here in Bonn to set a firm base for ambitiously accelerating global efforts to tackle climate change. The Dialogue will provide a space to showcase progress and share best practice in tackling climate change, with contributions from every corner of society.

Pre-2020 ambition

The discussions on pre-2020 ambition concluded with an agreement on a decision text which foresees two stocktaking exercises on pre-2020 implementation and ambition to take place at COP24 and COP25. The EU has already exceeded its 2020 target by having decreased emissions by 23% in 2016. Furthermore, the EU and its Member States remain the biggest donors of climate finance to developing countries with a contribution of €20.2 billion in 2016.

Loss and damage

The parties agreed on a substantive decision text. They worked out a compromise proposal that takes into account asks from the vulnerable and small islands while keeping a balance with what had been already agreed. An expert dialogue will be organised in May 2018 to enhance the support for Loss and Damage.

Gender Action Plan

The COP23 agreed on the first Gender Action Plan under the Convention, a priority for the Fijian presidency. The EU actively supported this action and many Member States invested efforts at the highest level in getting this initiative through.

Indigenous Peoples’ Platform

The Parties agreed on the functioning of the local communities and indigenous peoples’ platform, which was established at COP21 in Paris. Again the EU played an important role in securing the outcome.

Next steps

Ahead of the next UN climate conference (COP24) in Katowice, Poland, in December 2018, the EU will play an active role in a number of key high-level climate events, starting with the ‘One Planet Summit’ in Paris next month.

Next year, the EU will also host the second Ministerial on Climate Action (MoCA) together with Canada and China, in Brussels, and takes part in the 2018 Petersberg Climate Dialogue, as well as preparatory UN climate meetings in Bonn and Katowice ahead of COP24.

The release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on global warming of 1.5 celsius ahead of Katowice will be an important source of information for discussions under the Talanoa Dialogue.

For more information Commission report:

Two years after Paris – Progress towards meeting the EU’s climate commitments (November 2017)

Commission assessment of the Paris Agreement (March 2016)

Paris Agreement

Contacts:

Anna-Kaisa ITKONEN (Tel.: +32 229 56186)

Nicole BOCKSTALLER (Tel.: +32 229 52589)

For the public: Europe Direct by phone 00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11 or by email

The EU budget helps turn political priorities into a reality. The adopted 2018 EU budget confirms that the EU is directing money to where the needs are. In 2018, and in line with the European Commission proposal from May this year the biggest part of the EU budget will go to stimulate the creation of jobs, especially for young people, and to boost growth, strategic investments and convergence. The EU will also continue supporting the efforts to effectively deal with the migration challenge, both inside and outside of the EU.

Commissioner Günther H. Oettinger, in charge of budget and human resources, said: “This is a budget for all. It will go to create more jobs, more growth, more investments. It will help young people find jobs and internships. It will help making Europe more secure. Every euro must be spent efficiently and create added value for Europe.”

The 2018 EU budget is set at €160.1 billion in commitments (money that can be agreed in contracts in a given year) and €144.7 billion in payment credits (money that will be paid out). Some key features include:

–  Nearly half of the funds – €77.5 billion in commitments – will go to making our economy stronger, our universities more competitive, our companies better equipped to compete on the global market place. For instance, €2 billion will go to the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the core of the Juncker Plan, €354 million will support small and medium-sized companies (Competitiveness of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, COSME programme) and €11.2 billion will go to Horizon 2020, the EU research and innovation funding programme. A total of €55.5 billion will go to boosting growth, job creation and fostering convergence in all Member States and regions via the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESI Funds).

–  Young people will get more support and better opportunities to find jobs thanks to €350 million for the Youth Employment Initiative, a key action which seeks to address the challenge of youth unemployment in our Member States.

–  Support to European farmers amounts to €59 billion.

–  Further to the launch of the European Defence Fund, € 40 million are budgeted to fund collaborative research in innovative defence technologies and products. With €25 million already allocated in 2017, the total EU budget devoted to defence research until 2019 amount to €90 million.

–  Nearly €4.1 billion will be dedicated to managing migration and tackling security challenges. With the bulk of funding already frontloaded, the total for these policy areas will amount to €22 billion in the 2015-2018 period.

Background

Every year the European Commission tables a draft EU budget. This year, the Commission tabled its initial proposal on 30 May 2017.

On that basis, the European Parliament and the Council each take a position. This year, the Council formally adopted its position on 4 September 2017, while the European Parliament adopted its position in plenary on 25 October 2017.

Differences between the positions of the European Parliament and the Council are addressed in a negotiation process known as the ‘conciliation procedure’. This year, the 21-day conciliation procedure is running from 31 October until 20 November.

The negotiations are conducted by a specially convened Conciliation Committee, to which the European Parliament and the Council each send 28 representatives. The European Commission – the Commissioner in charge of the budget as well as experts from the Directorate-General for Budget – play the important role of an honest broker.

Next steps

To seal the compromise reached today, the European Parliament and the Council both have to formally approve the text within 14-days.

For More Information

Draft EU budget 2018: Commission proposes budget with focus on jobs, investments, migration and security

* Updated at 05:02 on 18 November 2017 to reflect actual date of agreement