European Union to focus on Quality Jobs, Anti-poverty and Affordable Housing in 2026

European Union to focus on Quality Jobs, Anti-poverty and Affordable Housing in 2026

On 10 September 2025, the annual State of the Union speech by European Commission President, Ursula Von der Leyen took place in Strasbourg. During her speech, Von der Leyen outlined the upcoming priorities at EU level, highlighting current global challenges and the EU’s position.  

Although the mentions of social initiatives by the Commission fell short, EPR welcomes the introduction of measures such as:

• The Quality Jobs Act, “to ensure that modern employment keeps pace with the modern economy”. This act would be part of the Quality Jobs Roadmap, a policy package that aims to support fair wages, high standards for health and safety, good working conditions, access to quality training and fair job transitions for workers and self-employed, and which is expected to be published in 2026.
• The European Anti-Poverty Strategy, a plan to help eradicate poverty by 2050.
• The Affordable Housing Plan, to make housing more affordable, sustainable and better quality.

Other initiatives for the European Commission in 2026 included in the State of the Union Letter of Intent* and that are also key for EPR include:

• Building on the Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025, the European Commission aims to propose new gender-sensitive policies in a post-2025 Gender Equality Strategy.
• The Skills portability initiative, which is part of the Union of Skills**, will aim to enhance the recognition of skills and qualifications across the EU, independently of where they were acquired.
• The Digital Fairness Act, with the aim of improving the protection of consumers in the online environment and increasing their trust by tackling problems such as the lack of digital fairness for consumers, including vulnerable consumers, leading to a negative financial impact, time loss, adverse health effects, and environmental costs.
• The Action Plan Against Cyberbullying, a plan that aims to establish a common EU approach to cyberbullying regarding prevention, response, victim support and adequate approach to perpetrators.

What are the next steps? In the coming months, the European Commission will publish its work programme for 2026, which will set concrete deadlines for the different policy initiatives.

*Every year, once the European Commission President has done their speech, their Letter of Intent is published. This letter includes a list of priorities for the coming year identified by the European Commission in discussions with the European Parliament and Council of the EU.

**To recall, the Union of Skills is a plan to improve high quality education, training, and lifelong learning across the EU. Its key objectives are to: (i) deliver higher levels of basic and advanced skills; (ii) provide opportunities for people to regularly update and learn new skills; (iii) facilitate recruitment by businesses across the EU; (iv) attract, develop and retain top talent in Europe.

The 2025 State of the Union Speech by Ursula Von der Leyen is available here.
Ursula Von der Leyen’s 2025 Letter of Intent available here.