ABSTRACT
The notion of social exclusion originated during the 1970’s in France. But, exclusion discourse became widespread in other European countries in the 1980’s that was a period of various economic, social and political crisis and restructuring, and crisis of welfare state. In the late 1990’s, it also has become one of the central social policy matters of EU. Interest in social exclusion has grown in EU in relation to rising rates of unemployment and poverty risk, increasing international migration, and the dismantling, or cutting back of welfare state. The notion of social exclusion focuses on lack of economic and social rights of citizenship, inadequate social partipication and lack of power. Recent years, social exclusion has been a gradually increasing problem in EU. For this reason, the fight against the social exclusion has become a one of the main six objectives of the European social policy by the Amsterdam Treaty. In 2000, the European Council of Lisbon agreed on the need to take steps to make decisive impact on the eradication of poverty and social exclusion by 2010. It has also agreed that Member States’ policies for combating social exclusion should be based on an Open Method of Co-ordination combining common objectives. All Member States have committed themselves in Nice to developing their policy priorities in combating social exclusion in the framework of four commonly agreed objectives: to facilitate participation in employment and access by all to resources, rights, goods and services; to prevent the risks of exclusion; to help the most vulnerable and to mobilise all relevant bodies