EU FUNDS

Regional Assistance

European Social Fund

European Social Fund (ESF)

The European Social Fund (ESF) is the EU's financial instrument for investing in people. The ESF channels European funds into helping Member States meet the goals they have agreed together to create more and better jobs. Its mission is to help prevent and fight unemployment, to make Europe's workforce and companies better equipped to face new challenges, and to prevent people losing touch with the labour market.

The ESF provides support for anticipating and managing economic and social change. It will be implemented in line with the European Employment Strategy and will focus on four key areas:

As one of the EU's two Structural Funds – the other being ERDF – the ESF aims to reduce the differences in living standards between the people and the regions of the EU by pursuing the following Objectives:

Convergence objective – aims to strengthen human resources so as to increase employment prospects, boost labour productivity and stimulate growth, as well as to support good governance and the strengthening of the institutions and administrative capacities.

Regional Competitiveness and Employment objective - the actions will concentrate on the ability of workers and firms to adapt to change, access to job market, social inclusion of the most disadvantaged, fight against discrimination and development of partnerships and networks for employment and social inclusion.

The ESF will finance up to 75% of public spending in areas covered by the "Convergence" objective and 50% in those covered by "Regional competitiveness and employment".

The eligible countries for funding under ERDF are the EU Member States (EU 27).

DG Employment, Social Affaires & Equal Opportunities: ESF