The annual Joint Employment Report by the Commission and the Council monitors key employment and social trends and the implementation of the EU Employment Guidelines. It reviews national measures, highlights priority challenges, and systematically anchors its analysis in the European Pillar of Social Rights, including equal opportunities and access to quality employment. 

The 2016 Council Recommendation on the Integration of the Long-term Unemployed into the Labour Market invites Member States to support people unemployed for over 12 months through personalised Job Integration Agreements and ‘single points of contact.’ It promotes coordinated access to benefits, guidance, training, and employer outreach, so that income support is combined with activation, skills development, and a smoother pathway back to decent work. 

The European Child Guarantee aims to ensure that children in need have effective access to free early childhood education and care (ECEC), education (incl. at least one healthy school meal), healthcare, healthy nutrition, and adequate housing.  

National Child Guarantee Action Plans coordinate social protection, education, housing, and health services to reach children most exposed to poverty and underperformance. Public health actors help identify at-risk groups, secure access to preventive and mental healthcare, and shape healthy school and local environments, directly linking equal opportunities in childhood to better health and life chances. 

The EU Roma Strategic Framework 2020–2030 and national Roma strategies set targets for equality, inclusion, and participation across education, employment, housing, and health. Health ministries and public health institutes lead the health pillar, using data on discrimination and poor outcomes to design outreach such as Roma health mediators and community health workers.  

By tackling barriers to schooling, decent work, and adequate living conditions, these strategies operationalise equal opportunities for Roma communities while narrowing persistent health gaps. 

The European Skills Agenda (2020–2025) is the EU’s plan to boost up- and reskilling, with a focus on low-skilled adults, young people, migrants, and other under-represented groups. By improving access to quality learning and supporting transitions into better, safer jobs in green and digital sectors, it helps reduce long-term unemployment, job insecurity and in-work poverty – key determinants of mental and physical health.  

Public health actors can link to the Agenda and ESF+ funding to embed health literacy, psychosocial skills, and workplace health promotion into skills policies. 

The EU Action Plan on Integration and Inclusion provides a framework for Member States to support third-country nationals and refugees in education, employment, health, and housing.  

On health, it promotes equitable access to mainstream services, culturally and linguistically appropriate information, and strengthened mental health and health promotion offers. Public health authorities, working with local governments and NGOs, use the plan to remove legal and practical barriers to care and to connect health interventions with integration measures, improving both equal opportunities and migrant health outcomes. 

The EU Anti-racism Action Plan 2020–2025 is the Commission’s framework to combat racism across the EU, strengthen enforcement of equality and hate-crime law, and support Member States’ national anti-racism action plans. It targets systemic racism in key areas such as policing, employment, education, housing, and health.  

For the health sector, it stresses the full application of the Racial Equality Directive to healthcare and social protection, calls on Member States to tackle non-discrimination and collect equality data in health systems, and mobilises EU funds to improve equal access to health and care infrastructure. The Action Plan is also linked to EU4Health and the Comprehensive Approach to Mental Health, recognising racism as a determinant of physical and mental health and a major driver of health inequalities. 

The LGBTIQ+ equality strategy 2026-2030 aims to build on the ambition and achievements of the 2020-2025 Strategy in furthering protecting LGBTIQ+ people from harmful practices and hate-motivated offences, empowering LGBTIQ+ communities and bodies promoting equality, and engaging civil society as well as Member States and other actors. In doing so, the strategy sets out a series of measures to step up action, integrate LGBTIQ equality across all policy areas, and help lift the voices of LGBTIQ+ minorities. 

The EU Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021–2030 is a ten-year framework to remove barriers so that persons with disabilities can fully enjoy their rights, participate in society and the economy, and live independently in the community.  

From a health perspective, it is a crucial strategy because it addresses higher risks of poverty, exclusion, and discrimination – major social determinants of health – and promotes equal access to quality health services, social protection and decent work.  

The Strategy takes an intersectional approach, and includes flagship initiatives such as AccessibleEU, the European Disability Card, and guidance on independent living and social services of excellence, all aimed at strengthening community-based support that protects physical and mental health and wellbeing.