Achievements
SOLIDAR believes in celebrating the positive change brought about by progressive movements all around the world, especially in trying and challenging times. Through their dedicated work for social justice and climate action, civil society organisations are significantly improving the lives of people on the ground and promoting equal and sustainable societies in Europe and beyond.
Our successes inspire and drive our hopes and commitments to advance justice, peace, equality, democracy, and sustainability. Together with our members and partners, we celebrate some of SOLIDAR’s achievements in the past years.
Fighting for social justice
Together with Social Platform and some of its members, as well as joining forces with ETUC, SOLIDAR emitted recommendations to set up an ambitious EU directive for improving working conditions in platform work. Many of these recommendations were included in the European Parliament’s position, contributing to its forward-looking approach. While the trilogues are still ongoing, SOLIDAR is recognised as one of the main civil society actors engaged on this subject and together with its allies keeps pushing for social justice to be at the heart of this Directive and the future of work more broadly.
Fostering progressive alliances to advance a Just Transition in Europe and beyond
Since 2021, SOLIDAR leads the European Alliance for a Just Transition, a coalition of more than 35 progressive organisations with a common vision for a socially just green transition in Europe. Conceived as a tool to strengthen cooperation between different organisations, especially social and environmental/climate NGOs, the Alliance enables the coordination of joint policy and advocacy actions, provides spaces to meet, exchange views and learn from each other, and offers capacity building opportunities to its members.
In recognition of its role as a key stakeholder in the field of just transition, in 2023 SOLIDAR was appointed Expert to the rapporteur for the exploratory Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on “Advancing the EU’s just transition policy framework: what measures are necessary?”, requested by the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU. SOLIDAR therefore played a key role in the drafting of the text and pushing for a European just transition framework that guarantees wellbeing within planetary boundaries.
Building Learning and Sustainable Societies
Together with like-minded civil society organisations and the Lifelong Learning Platform, SOLIDAR Foundation has promoted the concept of Lifelong Learning across EU institutions, and with it, the contribution of civil society to inclusive education policies thanks to non-formal and informal learning. We also have contributed to the mainstreaming of the concept of Citizenship Education and the promotion of Global and Digital Citizenship Education to navigate today’s social challenges. These steps forward are preconditions for achieving a holistic vision of education that leaves no one behind.
As education has been facing underfunding for years and notably since the financial crisis, we are also proud of having contributed to the campaign Erasmusx10, which led to tripling the budget of the Erasmus+ programme in the MFF 2021-2027. Much more is needed to properly invest in education and lifelong learning, but this was a first step for a campaign that continues until today.
Promoting global social justice
In 2009, SOLIDAR started its campaign for Universal Social Protection. Together with its members and partners, we advocated at the International Labour Organisation and the EU level for the recognition of social protection as a right that belongs to any human being, whether at work or out of work, in formal or informal jobs. In 2012, our campaign contributed to the adoption of the ILO Recommendation 202 on Social Protection Floors. To ensure its implementation, SOLIDAR, together with the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung and other civil society organisations, co-founded the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors which continues to be very active in the promotion of the establishment of social protection floors and systems and the mobilisation of domestic and international resources for its funding.
