Combating poverty and social exclusion in the European Union : the cases of Malta and Cyprus

Abstract

The economic and financial crisis that swept the world after 2007 affected the European Union (EU) as well. In fact, the then-President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, introducing Europe 2020: A European strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, stated that the EU had to recover from the crisis and to acknowledge the changing economic climate: ‘‘business as usual’ would consign us to a gradual decline, to the second rank of the global order’ (European Commission, 2010c: ii). The European Commission therefore proposed five targets to be attained by the EU by 2020, including that ‘20 million less people should be at risk of poverty’ (European Commission, 2010c:3).