The Commission has initiated a public consultation to take stock of present social realities and trends in European societies. This “social stocktaking exercise” was first proposed in the May 2006 “Citizens' Agenda” Communication. The European Council in June 2006 endorsed the idea. The aim is to reach out to different constituencies to discuss what forms Europe's social reality. This unprecedented exercise will be based on a consultation paper, a Eurobarometer poll and a special website. The Commission is in listening mode, not testing policy. Insofar as appropriate, results of this exercise may be fed into forthcoming policy initiatives, e.g. the review of the Commission's Social Agenda later this year.
As a starting point for the consultations, the Commission has presented an interim report to the European Council on 8 and 9 March 2007, backed up by a consultation paper prepared by the Bureau of European Policy Advisers (BEPA) of the Commission.
The BEPA analysis, "Europe's Social Reality" which is personal to the paper’s authors, Roger Liddle and Frederic Lerais, does raise a broad range of issues in an interesting way which the College trust will be helpful in stimulating the kind of thoughtful wide-ranging debate that they would now like to ensue.
Welcoming the launch Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, said: “The modern purpose of the European Union is to enable Europe’s citizens to enhance their prosperity, solidarity and security in a global age. We cannot do this adequately without a common frame of reference for what is happening to our societies and a common understanding of the likely impact of the big social challenges we face.”
At the Hampton Court Summit, Europe's leaders classified these challenges under the two broad headings of demography and globalisation. Since then public concerns about questions of social well-being and equity have continued to rise. "At EU level we have rightly examined in great detail the modern challenges of competitiveness. Now is the time to analyse and reflect on an equal footing on Europe’s social challenges” added President Barroso.

Process
The way that the Commission is organising this consultation is unprecedented. The goal is to promote a wide-ranging, open-ended debate about the social challenges Europeans face in an era of globalisation. At this stage, there is no draft set of proposals, or even policy guidelines on which the Commission is seeking views. Only at a later stage may policy conclusions be drawn in close partnership with the Member States.
The exercise will not be limited to Brussels based organisations but will involve local and national organisations, as well as engage the policy and think tank community across Europe. Anyone with an interest in the issues at stake is invited to participate in the debate (or to make its views known) during the period of consultation.
The consultation will stretch over the remainder of 2007.

Eurobarometer poll
A Eurobarometer poll gauging many dimensions of social life was carried out at the end of 2006.
Overall, European Union citizens are happy. 86% (EU25 average) are relatively satisfied with their personal life and everyday environment, 83% with their standard of living, 78% with travel facilities, 77% with medical services and 71% with schools in their local area. 51% consider that their social welfare system provides wide enough coverage.
85% of EU citizens are confident of keeping their job in the coming months. Levels of job satisfaction are is relatively high, with 77% feeling their job allows them to use their knowledge and skills and 71% that it requires them to keep learning new things; for two thirds empowerment at work is a reality. 41% of them, however, feel that their work is too demanding and stressful: 34% disagree.
However less than a third trust their country's institutions. The issue which currently concerns them most is unemployment (36%) before the cost of living (35%) and pensions (30%).
A quarter of EU citizens feel at risk of falling into poverty and 62% believe that anyone is at risk of poverty sometimes in their life. If getting a good education (62%) and working hard (45%) are seen as the two most important things for getting ahead in life, 64% of EU citizens nonetheless feel that the life of those who are children today will be more difficult than the life of their own generation.
This Special Eurobarometer survey was conducted through face to face interviews by TNS Opinion & Social. A total of 26.755 people were interviewed between the 17th of November and the 19th of December 2006.