ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to illustrate and explain the non-impact of Europe 2020's poverty dimension in the United Kingdom (UK). Especially in the field of poverty and social exclusion, the UK involvement in European policy co-ordination during the Lisbon era does appear to have had real procedural effects, particularly from the second reporting cycle. In the poverty area, Europe 2020 was domesticated in a second and more direct sense; the existing UK child poverty target was simply substituted for the Europe 2020 target in the first UK National Reform Programme. The UK has a long tradition of action against poverty, on which its social security system has always been largely focused. It was in the process of codifying, following extensive public and Parliamentary debate, a national poverty target just as Europe 2020 taking shape. Analysis of the impact of Europe 2020 on British anti-poverty policy does not lend much support to the more optimistic readings of the strategy's transformative potential.
