Recent social policy developments in Germany, Luxembourg, Malta and Portugal

Four new Flash Reports prepared by the European Social Policy Network (ESPN) are now available and provide information on recent policy developments in Germany, Luxembourg, Malta and Portugal.

• Last summer, the German Care Professions Reform Act (Pflegeberufereformgesetz) was passed and approved. The act aims to modernise care education, provide better training conditions and raise the attractiveness of the care professions in order to tackle the overall shortage of care professionals in Germany.
• In Luxembourg, shortages of affordable rental housing for modest income households are a major problem in social policy. Recently, the Luxembourg public pension fund agreed to invest in the construction of a building to be leased to a social housing organisation working for this specific segment of the housing market.
• The budget for 2018 was published recently in Malta. The budget contains several new indicators in the field of social policy.
• There has been progress in the implementation process of the Portuguese Strategy for the Integration of Homeless Persons 2017-2023: by improving the operational structures which will support implementation, some of the main challenges which led to implementation failures in the previous strategy have been addressed.