Commissioner László Andor on 15th March 2012 brought attention to the Commission's report to the Council and European Parliament on the success of the 2010 European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion.

If this is news to you, you will be among the 90.25% of people in Europe who escaped the Commission's attempts at promoting this ‘European Year’. These statistics use the Commission's own figures of an EU population of 502.2 million (2011 figure) and the number of 49 million people who were reached via various media outlets. The website which was designed to accompany the European Year did even worse, achieving 400,000 hits, or attracting the attention of only 0.079% of the European population. It could be said that the 2010 European Year itself suffered social exclusion.

Unsurprisingly, the report declares the year a success, listing some of the many 'achievements' in fighting social exclusion and poverty, including amongst others, making a human chain around the European Parliament, issuing reports, holding forums, and organising conferences.

The Commission set aside a budget of 17.25 million Euros for the year, with 8 million being for pan-European events. The EU directly set about spending money on the organising of media breakfasts for networking with the media, in order to build contacts; using Facebook, Wikipedia and Youtube to campaign; and sponsoring certain music/film/NGO events. Quite why the EU would need to network and build contacts with journalists which it already has contacts with via its press and media relations departments was a question not asked, like also whether it was good value for money and time well used to set up a Facebook page or make a short video for Youtube in a year in which many people suffered real reductions in their standard of living.

The year's aim was to recognise the rights of those in poverty and their dignity, increase public ownership of these issues and get the public more involved in policy formation, show how reduced poverty benefits everyone and builds cohesiveness, and show commitment and action from Member States and the EU. These aims are at least a recognition of the fact that government cannot solve everything, and an implicit endorsement of the Conservative Party's 'Big Society' movement to get communities to take more responsibility.

For the first time ever, Member States made a commitment to cut poverty and social exclusion by 2020 by 20 million people. There were, of course, no penalties for not achieving this target, and the report noted a lack of governmental commitment and a failure to follow up, after only 2 years, on the promises made.

The Commission's report showed the emergence of an understanding that forces other than government can help, by recognising that business and the media can have critical influence. However, it will likely be a long time before the thinking develops into how deregulation can help set business free to make jobs and give people the opportunities to climb out of poverty and exclusion. The report acknowledged that many opportunities in this sphere were missed in 2010, as were opportunities for the EU to work in coordination with its own programmes for the reduction of poverty and social exclusion.

The report made general policy recommendations on improving efficiency and integrating systems better, and also called for more of the European Social Fund to be spent on supporting Member State initiatives. This is of course another example of EU waste, as Member States will be giving money to Europe, only to have that money returned, minus salaries and administrative expenses, in support of projects that they are, of their own initiative, carrying out.

In summary, what the Commission called a success, could equally be called a damp squib. 90% of Europe knew nothing about the European Year. Not even 0.1% of people bothered to check the website. Money was wasted on breakfasts, internet sites, and duplication of pre-existing arrangements. And all the while in 2010, as the EU funded forums and conferences, the real situation of real people trapped in poverty and social exclusion got worse.