Social Democrat MEP Victor Negrescu addressed the European Commission this month on EU measures to address the situation of children whose parents had left for other European countries. The MEP pointed out that this problem is a widespread phenomenon across Europe, especially in countries experiencing a massive population exodus.

In his question, he cited data recently presented by the Save the Children association, which revealed that, for example, in Romania, almost one million children had had at least one parent leave the country in recent years, while several hundred thousand faced the social, educational, psychological or health effects of separation from their parents.

Victor Negrescu also stressed that, unfortunately, European programmes and the few initiatives in this area at the EU level do not provide an effective and sufficient response to the complex needs for assistance which require, among other, much better-defined European mechanisms.

In light of the above, the MEP Victor Negrescu wanted to know whether the European Commission intends: to identify and propose new programmes or sources of funding to help children left behind, and to develop an integrated programme model or set of recommendations for the care and social assistance of children left behind, including through the implementation of a new European system of data collection and reporting on labour migration to correct the problem of under-reporting.