Conclusions of the Council and of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States, meeting within the Council, on the importance of family-friendly policies in Europe and the establishment of an Alliance for Families
Date: 2007-07-17
Institutions: Council of the European Union, Representatives of the Governments of the Member States
Subjects: economic and social cohesion, exchange of information, family policy, living conditions, population policy

17.7.2007

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 163/1

IV

(Notices)

NOTICES FROM EUROPEAN UNION INSTITUTIONS AND BODIES

COUNCIL

Conclusions of the Council and of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States,
meeting within the Council, on the importance of family-friendly policies in Europe and the esta-
blishment of an Alliance for Families

(2007/C 163/01)

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE REPRESENTA-
TIVES OF THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE MEMBER STATES, MEETING
WITHIN THE COUNCIL,

which have achieved high female labour force participation
and the most progress in gender equality are today also
experiencing relatively high fertility rates;

RECALLING:

(1) that at its Spring 2007 (1) meeting the European Council
agreed that the establishment of an ‘Alliance for Families’
will serve as a platform for the exchange of views and
knowledge on family-friendly policies as well as of good
practices between Member States, in order better to meet
the challenges and seize the opportunities of demographic
change;

(2) the importance accorded by the Commission in its
communication entitled ‘The demographic
future of
Europe — from challenge to opportunity’ (2) to the asser-
tion that Member States can and must find successful poli-
tical responses to demographic changes and to low birth
rates,
in particular, and increase labour participation
through family-friendly policies;

(3) the Council Resolution of 22 February 2007 (3), which
stresses that demographic change requires further efforts
to allow those men and women who wish to work and to
raise families to have children without having to sacrifice
their careers, by promoting gender equality and by facili-
tating the reconciliation of work, family and private life,
taking into consideration the equal participation of fathers
in family tasks;

(4) the demography report submitted by the Commission
services on 14 May 2007 which shows that countries

(5) the Decision of the Commission (4) to set up a High-Level
Group on Demography with the mandate to advise the
Commission in the process of monitoring demographic
change and policy responses to it;

(6) that it is the responsibility of the Member States to formu-
late policies for the support for families consistent with
national public policy;

(7) the Commission's Roadmap for equality between women
and men (5) and the Pact on Gender Equality adopted by
the European Council
in March 2006 where policies to
reconcile work and private and family life are set as priori-
ties for achieving equality between women and men, and
also the Report on equality between women and men
2007 (6) where it is highlighted that policy responses to
demographic change should take into account the principle
of gender equality;

(8) the European Pact for Youth adopted by the European
in March 2005, which emphasises the need for
Council
better reconciling work, family and private life to enable
young people, who so wish, to start a family and to parti-
cipate fully in training and education or to enter into
working life at the same time;

(1) Doc. 7224/07.
(2) Doc. 14114/06 [COM (2006) 571 final].
(3) Doc. 6216/1/07.

(4) Expected on 25 May 2007.
(5) Doc. 7034/06.
(6) COM(2007) 49.

C 163/2

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

17.7.2007

(9) the opinion of

the European Economic and Social
Committee of 14 March 2007 (1), which states
that
families are a source of economic prosperity, especially
when both parents can be gainfully employed, that the EU
should therefore encourage the Member States to incorpo-
rate the family dimension in its economic and social poli-
cies and that the EU should use best practice to promote a
sustainable family policy;

opportunity, gender equality and suitable conditions
to
reconcile work, family and private life are not sufficiently put
into practice, that families, and in particular women, are
overburdened by the constraints and costs that raising chil-
dren or caring for dependents may involve and by the lack
of affordable child and other care services of high quality,
and thus do not have sufficiently reliable bases on which to
plan ahead and organise their lives;

(10) the tools and targets already agreed in the European Union
in recent years under the Lisbon Strategy for Growth and
Jobs and the open method of coordination for social
protection and social inclusion, that are of high relevance
for a better reconciliation of family, private and working
life and the development of policy responses to demo-
graphic change:

— the target agreed by the Lisbon European Council in
increasing the proportion of women in

2000 of
employment to more than 60 % by 2010,

— the call by the Stockholm European Council in 2001
for the development of indicators on the provision of
care facilities for children and other dependants and on
family benefit systems,

— the commitment made by the Barcelona European
Council in 2002 to provide childcare by 2010 to at
least 90 % of children between 3 and 6 years old and
at least 33 % of children under 3 years old,

— the call upon Member States by the Spring European
Council in 2006 (2), reaffirmed in March 2007 (3), to
take necessary measures to rapidly and significantly
reduce child poverty, giving all children equal opportu-
nities, regardless of their social background;

(11) the announcement by the Commission that it will present
in 2008 a
assessing
the Member States' progress in achieving the childcare
development goals.

communication on child care

EMPHASISE THAT:

1. the basic changes in the composition of the population as a
result of demographic change will have consequences for the
structure of social
life and for the economy, posing chal-
lenges that must be met with coherent, long-term strategies;

2.

low birth rates in many European countries very often do
not reflect the personal wishes of women and men, but are
in many cases the expression of their social situation and of
the social imbalance characterised by the fact that equality of

(1) Doc. SOC/245 — CESE 423/2007.
(2) Doc. 7775/1/06 REV 1 (paragraph 72).
(3) Doc. 7224/07 (paragraph 19).

3. with full awareness of the diversity of families and of family
policies in the European Union, better support for families
and enhancing the well-being of children are […] crucial to a
better quality of life and to Europe's economic development.
Such measures should encourage equality of opportunity for
children and young people of all backgrounds in terms of
education,
training and entry into a highly productive
working life. They should also allow the reconciliation of
family and private life for women and men with
work,
chances of
caring responsibilities,
European businesses of finding qualified workers;

enhancing the

thus

4. sustainable family policies have a part to play in improving
social cohesion and in sound economic development, and to
that end national measures in particular in the following
areas have to be borne in mind:

— improvement of

the social

infrastructure for families,
allowing people with care responsibilities to enter and
stay in employment, providing affordable and accessible
high quality care services for children and other depen-
dents in particular, including the availability of counsel-
ling, parental education and training for carers as well as
day care and leisure-time facilities for young people,

— more precise targeting of support for families, with the
aim of better compensating the costs of raising children,
including during the periods immediately following their
birth, and taking due account of the specific needs of
single parent families and of families with a large number
of children, as well as helping them to fulfil care respon-
sibilities for other dependents,

— better conditions governing the organisation of work and
time, and a better balance between employment security
and flexibility (‘flexicurity’) over the life cycle to the
benefit of family life, including in particular appropriate
for parental and care leave for both
arrangements
women and men, better access to lifelong learning oppor-
tunities and ensuring gender equality in employment,
notably by tackling gender stereotypes;

17.7.2007

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 163/3

5. the European Union must take into account the fact that
Member States are responsible for formulating appropriate
sustainable family policies, yet it also ought to take advantage
of the decisive contribution that European exchanges in this
field can make to achieving the goals of the renewed Lisbon
Strategy for Growth and Jobs and the European Union's
social cohesion objectives;

6. the Alliance for Families constitutes a platform for

the
exchange of views and knowledge and represents a sustain-
able commitment of the European Union and its Member
States to address, within the context of demographic change,
issues related to family-friendly policies,
to support each
other in the search for forward-looking political responses
and to make knowledge and experience available for all
actors, so as to reinforce shared efforts. At the European
level, no new structures shall be created but existing instru-
ments, resources and bodies should be used to that end in a
coherent, effective and targeted way.

CALL ON THE MEMBER STATES AND THE COMMISSION:

1. to take into consideration the needs of families, in particular
those with care responsibilities, in the work of the relevant
European policy-formulating committees and expert groups.

the Social Protection Committee and the
The work of
Employment Committee will help to understand which
support policies are most effective in securing adequate
living standards for families, in reconciling work and family
life and in preventing poverty. Within their respective remits,
this could include the promotion of the labour-market parti-
cipation of parents, family friendly working arrangements,
the provision of enabling services, including care for depen-
dents, services adapted to the needs of people with caring
responsibilities who want to participate in the labour market,
day-care and pre-school education, cash benefits and tax
benefits.

The High Level Group on Demography, as an advisory body
to the Commission, will contribute to the overall assessment
of how to address demographic challenges and should,
in
particular, stimulate the exchange of good practice on family-
friendly policies. In so doing, it will also support the Social
Protection Committee and the Employment Committee in
the above-mentioned areas of work. The Commission will
ensure the complementarity of the work of the High Level
Group with the activities of the two other Committees as
well as with the High Level Group on gender mainstreaming;

CALL ON THE COMMISSION:

1. to establish a framework in which interested Member States,
social partners, civil society organisations and other stake-
holders can learn from each others' experience and use it to
improve conditions for families. The following measures
should in particular be envisaged:

— invite the European Foundation for the Improvement of
Living and Working Conditions, to set up under its aegis
and for the purpose of facilitating the exchange of experi-
ence, good practice and innovative approaches on family
friendly policies, an observatory which will, in coopera-
tion with the Member States and the social partners,
gather information, process it and make it available; of
particular importance is information on local, regional
and company initiatives to increase family-friendliness,
especially concerning a better reconciliation of work,
family and private life,

— promote research on the situation of families and on
family-friendly policies in order to enhance knowledge of
the effectiveness of such policies and how they interact
with related policy areas and the effects of
social,
economic and cultural conditions; such research should
be promoted under
the 7th Framework Research
Programme, taking particular account of European diver-
sity, and should also involve the European Institute for
Gender Equality and the OECD in particular,

— support the role of the High-Level Group on Demo-
graphy in facilitating the exchange of views with social
partners and civil society, in order to involve them in the
establishment of the Alliance for Families,

— take appropriate account of family issues in future demo-
graphy reports and in the future fora on demography
starting in 2008,

— ensure that local and regional players in Europe who are
willing to organise fora and the establishment of city and
regional partnerships can benefit
from international
exchanges of on-the-ground experience to be identified
through the above-mentioned research activities,
the
work of the demography forum, the High-Level Group
on Demography and the observatory;

2. to use the information provided by the Member States to
describe their state of preparation for demographic change,
every two years using its annual progress report;

3. to evaluate progress achieved by the Alliance for Families
the 2010

its findings on the occasion of

and present
European Demography Forum.

2. to bring together the measures taken and progress made in
the context of the Alliance for Families in a public internet
portal which also includes relevant information provided by
the Member States, the social partners and non-governmental
organisations.

1. to make intensive use of the opportunities for exchanges of
opinion and experience offered by the Alliance for Families
and, in particular, make the necessary contributions to the
work of the High-Level Group on Demography;

CALL ON THE MEMBER STATES:

C 163/4

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

17.7.2007

2. when preparing and organising local, regional and national
fora on demographic and family-related issues, to establish
close cooperation with the social partners, and involve
undertakings and non-governmental organisations; the fora
could be used to create lasting and action-oriented alliances
for more family-friendliness,
the
major determinants of the quality of family life;

taking into account all

3. to make use of the possibilities offered by the European
Structural Funds and of other relevant European funding
instruments for securing appropriate financial support for
local, regional and national family-friendly initiatives such as
the organisation of national, regional or local fora and part-
through better
nerships seeking to promote employment

reconciliation of work, family and private life by facilitating
access to child care and care for dependent persons and by
adapting the organisation of work to the needs of families;

4. to take the appropriate measures to promote an equal
sharing of care responsibilities between women and men;

5. against the background that the diversity of national family
policies and traditions provides a good resource for mutual
learning between Member States, to use the information and
experience made available through an intensified European
exchange to identify possible improvements of their own
frameworks for supporting families.