Key note speakers at the Social Protection Policies and Microsimulation workshop included Holly Sutherland on the use of microsimulation models in the European Union, Daria Popova on ‘Family policies and child benefits in Europe: the state-of-the-art’, Predrag Bejaković on ‘Effectiveness of active labour market policies in Croatia’ and Francesco Figari on ‘In-work benefits across Europe: possibilities for an evaluation through a microsimulation approach’. Policy speeches were from Katarina Ivankovic Knezievc from the Republic of Croatia’s Ministry of Labour and Pensions and Martin Strmota from the Ministry of Demography, Family, Youth and Social Policy.

The annual project meeting included sessions on developments in EUROMOD functionality – the hypothetical household tool – HHoT – and the new Advanced Statistics Calculator – ASC. A separate session looked at improvements to SILC data. The meeting included a range of presentations on tax and benefit microsimulation analysis at a national level including work on the 2016 Budget of Malta by their Ministry of Finance, and a look at hypothetical changes to personal taxation in Bulgaria.

The meeting also discussed future developments for EUROMOD, including integrating extensions into the master model and integrating parental benefits. Loukas Stemitsiotis from DG Employment, Daniel Daco from the JRC, Emilio Di Meglio from Eurostat and EUROMOD’s Executive Director, Jack Kneeshaw, also spoke about the changes that will happen during the gradual transition of the model’s update and maintenance from Essex to the European Commission and plans for EUROMOD from 2018.