Website: MISSOC – Mutual Information System on Social Protection

MISSOC was established in 1990 to promote a continuous exchange of information on social protection among the EU Member States. The system nowadays includes information on Social Protection in 28 Member States, the three countries of the European Economic Area - Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway - as well as Switzerland.

MISSOC has grown into a central knowledge and information base for public authorities, professional users and European citizens, providing up-to-date information on social protection legislation, benefits and conditions in all participating countries. On the one hand, the information base allows users to find descriptive or detailed information about a specific country. On the other hand, the system offers the opportunity to compare and analyse several social protection systems.

Significant changes are coming for MISSOC. In autumn 2013, the European Commission launched a call for tender aimed at establishing a new social policy network (SPN), bringing together the work until now done by the Network of Independent Experts on Social Inclusion and the ASISP (independent experts for the analytical support on social protection reforms). The secretariat of this SPN, which is scheduled to become operational later in 2014 year, will also be responsible for servicing the MISSOC Network.

• Primary Source

European Commission: DG Employment, Social Affais and Inclusion: Social protection systems - MISSOC http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=815&langId=en

European Commission: DG Employment, Social Affais and Inclusion: Establishment and management of a Social Policy Network, 2013 http://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=10949&langId=en

MISSOC Secretariat: Information Base http://www.missoc.org/MISSOC/MISSOCII/MISSOCII/INFORMATIONBASE/informationBase.jsp

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