A key objective in the EU is to ensure sustainability of the public finances, including in a long-term perspective. This paper presents a horizontal assessment framework used by the Commission services to identify structural-fiscal reforms that are deemed necessary to address fiscal sustainability challenges in the Member States. It describes the steps to ascertain the extent to which there is a policy challenge in ensuring progress towards fiscal sustainability and which policy dimensions merits closer scrutiny, taking into account the country-specific circumstances in the fields of, respectively:

1. pension policy;
2. health care policy; and,
3. long-term care policy. 

The areas under scrutiny concern the design of national policies in the above-mentioned policy fields and are under the direct control of the Member States’ governments. These areas are explicitly mentioned, in relevant cases, in the policy coordination process at EU level implementing the Europe 2020 strategy, the European Semester.