Towards a common framework for developing cross-nationally comparable reference budgets in Europe

Reference budgets could play an important role in the work of measuring poverty and assessing income adequacy, and in the process of monitoring social inclusion policies in the European Union. As the reference budgets that are already constructed in some European countries are all developed rather independently from each other, they are not directly comparable due to substantial differences in objectives and methods used. In this paper we sketch how to move forward towards the construction of cross-country comparable reference budgets. A common theoretical framework, a common methodology and commonly agreed criteria are essential building blocks. We discuss the choices we have made in order to start developing cross-nationally comparable reference budgets for Belgium, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy and Spain in the project ImPRovE , a project financed by the European Commission.