europa.eu (28.02.2021) The European Commission has presented a green paper to launch a broad policy debate on the challenges and opportunities of Europe's ageing society. It sets out the impact of this pronounced demographic trend across our economy and society and invites the public to express their views on how to respond to this in a public consultation, which will run for 12 weeks.

October 2020 (caf.fr)

In October 2020, the Cnaf released 5 million euros for the purchase of 500,000 inclusive masks (transparent) for early childhood professionals working in a childcare centre or "childcare assistants' centres".

From the beginning of the pandemic, decisions were taken to ensure the automatic renewal of social minimum entitlements. Given the reopening of all public services, this measure now only concerns certain benefits. This is particularly the case for disabled persons receiving the disabled adult allowance (Aah) or the education allowance for disabled children (Aeeh).

08.12.2020 (education.gouv.fr)

Since the circulation of the Covid19 and the health crisis, the Caisse nationale des allocations familiales (Cnaf) has put in place measures to support particularly disadvantaged families, as well as various managers of services useful to families. The back-to-school allowance (Allocation de rentrée scolaire) paid to families with the lowest incomes and school-age children has been exceptionally increased by €100 per child as part of the Government's Recovery Plan.

Government of the Republic of Croatia (19.11.2020) Cross-border data exchange between the Croatian Stop COVID-19 application and official applications of other EU member states has been established. This makes Croatia the seventh EU country in a row, along with Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia and Spain, which exchanges "infected keys" through the federation gateway (European Federation Gateway Service) and thus enables anonymous notification of foreign contacts about the risk of infection. 

europa.eu (15.11.2020) The German presidency of the Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional deal on the EU4Health programme for 2021-2027. With a budget of EUR 5.1 billion, the new reinforced programme provides a strong basis for Union action in the health field based on lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. It comes at a time when EU citizens still experience the impact of a major health threat and the resulting human suffering and severe socio-economic consequences.

The EU is making additional financial resources available to the member states to strengthen cohesion and boost the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

European Commission (09.11.2020) The report analyses the progress towards the Europe 2020 target on reducing poverty and social exclusion, together with the latest social trends to watch, and presents the key structural social challenges in each Member State. However, following the COVID-19 pandemic that has swept across Europe in 2020, the report also focuses on the decisive action taken by Member States to protect employment, income and access to services through a variety of measures.

This volume describes the health care and long-term care systems of all EU Member States on a country basis and presents the related policy challenges.