They represent the first time the Prime Ministers and Heads of State have given an explicit personal commitment to present concrete initiatives, and to have their plans for action scrutinised by their peers, and by the European Institutions. The Summit stressed the need to raise womens' employment rates. It agreed on the need to reverse occupational under-representation. It identified the importance of raising levels of care provision and of eliminating obstacles to returning to work after absence. It recognised all these measures as important to enabling women and men to develop modern approaches to meeting the new demands of working and family life, the new mixture of choice and need.
Work is well underway on making the next steps in our collaborative work.
Member States have already undertaken to submit their action plans by 15 April. Within the Commission, we have embarked on a series of national seminars, with the Member States, to help shape the national action plans which will provide the substance of the new process. We have already convened seminars in partnership with many of the Member States, including the two 1998 Presidencies, the UK and Austria, as well as Finland. In the next week or so, similar meetings will take place in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Madrid, Rome and Brussels. The rest take place during March.