President Marie Louise Coleiro Preca has appealed to the European Union to revise its policies to address poverty.

The President was addressing a high-level European Commission conference in Brussels “The Europe 2020 poverty target: lessons learned and the way forward”.

President Coleiro Preca said that a new form of world poverty, that of people who worked hard to obtain tertiary level qualifications but still ended in low paid jobs and precarious employment, was emerging.

She said that poverty was not an individual, family or community problem but a problem rooted in political, social and economic injustices.

President Coleiro-Preca said one had to be careful to ensure that social values were not just safeguarded but also strengthened for poverty not to rise.

She asked whether the minimum wage still ensured a decent standard of living and appealed to the community to fight poverty.

She said that in Malta, a process to set up centres for family resources with the aim of addressing poverty challenges with immediate effect was underway.