The Council Resolution on “Combating social exclusion” (Council, 1989a) adopted in September 1989 emphasised that “combating social exclusion may be regarded as an important part of the social dimension of the internal market” and pointed to “the effectiveness of coordinated, coherent development policies based on active participation by local and national bodies and by the people involved”. It undertook “to continue and, as necessary, to step up the efforts undertaken in common as well as those made by each Member State, and to pool their knowledge and assessments of the phenomena of exclusion” and consequently called on the Commission “to study, together with the Member States, the measures they are taking to combat social exclusion” and “to report on the measures taken by the Member States and by the Community in the spheres covered by this Resolution”.

Council Recommendation 92/441/EEC of June 1992 (Council, 1992b) on “Common criteria concerning sufficient resources and social assistance in social protection systems” urged EU Member States to recognise the “basic right of a person to sufficient resources and social assistance to live in a manner compatible with human dignity as a part of a comprehensive and consistent drive to combat social exclusion”. Practical guidelines suggested to organise the implementation of this right included: “fixing the amount of resources considered sufficient to cover essential needs with regard to respect for human dignity, taking account of living standards and price levels in the Member State concerned, for different types and sizes of household”, “adjusting or supplementing amounts to meet specific needs” and “in order to fix the amounts, referring to appropriate indicators, such as, for example, statistical data on the average disposable income in the Member State, statistical data on household consumption, the legal minimum wage if this exists or the level of prices”.

The third text was adopted one month later, in July 1992: Council Recommendation 92/442/EEC on the “Convergence of social protection objectives and policies” (Council, 1992a). Because “comparable trends in most of the Member States may lead to common problems (in particular the ageing of the population, changing family situations, a persistently high level of unemployment and the spread of poverty and forms of poverty)”, the Council recommended that this “de facto convergence” should be further promoted by establishing what was termed a “convergence strategy” and which consists basically of the identification of “common objectives”.