A self-critical flashback on the EU’s anti-poverty promise

This paper is an introduction to a forthcoming book by Bea Cantillon, Tim Goedemé and John Hills, Decent incomes for all. Improving policies in Europe. This new book presents extensive empirical research on the impact of policies pursued in EU countries to fight poverty, and focuses on a question that has exercised European policy-makers and policy-analysts for at least ten years: why did European governments fail to deliver on their promise – proclaimed with so much emphasis at the turn of the century – to reduce poverty among European citizens? In this introductory paper, I situate the book in a line of research marked by three earlier books, and I look back – self-critically – on the promises made 18 years ago at the EU’s Lisbon Summit.