Our guest has an important role in promoting social policies in the European Union, at a time when much of the political oxygen is being sucked out by the competitiveness and simplification agenda, as well as by defence and security issues. Roxana Minzatu is Executive Vice-President of the European Commission and is in charge of social rights and skills, quality jobs and preparedness. Minzatu is a Romanian social democrat, a former minister for European funds in the Romanian government and a former MEP. She recently presented an anti-poverty strategy aimed at dealing with the fact that one in five Europeans – or 93 million people – are at risk of poverty or social exclusion. “I want to send a signal of optimism with this strategy. I don’t want to paint a bleak picture,” Minzatu tells the programme. “But the reality is that the numbers (of people at risk of poverty) are dynamic. The cost of living is rising, the energy shocks crisis, the invasion of Ukraine, and now the Middle East crisis. There are a …