Poverty is set to be one of the key issues dominating the 2024 European elections. The EU is home to 95 million people who live below the poverty line – that is, who live on less than 60 percent of the median income for their country. In all, that's one in five Europeans who live at risk of social exclusion.
The current European Commission has pledged to reduce the number of people living in poverty by 15 million by 2030 – but due to the global pandemic, the war in Ukraine, inflation and rising energy prices, the trend has actually gone the other way, with the past three years seeing the number of people in poverty rising by 3 million.
