Reference texts European Union
# EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION on reconciling professional, family and private lives, (2003/2129(INI) – Bastos Report
having regard to the fact that 2004 has been proclaimed ‘Year of the Family’
A. whereas one of the aims of the European Community is to promote employment and improve living and working conditions,
D. whereas the European Council in Lisbon in March 2000 recognised that it was important to improve all aspects of equal opportunities, in particular by making it easier to reconcile professional and family life, and that such measures should help to ensure that the proportion of women in employment is more than 60% in 2010,
E. whereas the European Council in Barcelona in March 2002 concluded that the Member States should eliminate obstacles to the participation of women in the labour market and set up, by 2010, childcare facilities for at least 90% of children between three years old and the mandatory school age and for at least 33% of children under three years old, which facilities must be equally available in towns and in rural areas,
F. having regard to the commitment of the Member States to allowing men and women to reconcile family responsibilities and professional responsibilities, as envisaged in the Beijing Programme of Action,
H. whereas making allowance for the combining of professional and personal life contributes to the personal fulfilment of men and women, promotes an increase in the rate of employment of women and, hence, the overall employment rate and the birth rate,
I. whereas making allowance for reconciling the different stages of life is not a financial burden for businesses but a useful and relevant investment which will promote long-term growth,
J. whereas women must be able to choose whether to work, even if they have children, or whether they want to stay at home,
K. whereas the rights of children must be at the heart of family policies,
L. whereas in the European Union 17% of the population is under 15 years old, 16% of the population is over 65 years old and people with disabilities make up between 10 and 12% of the population; whereas, furthermore, at least 15% of children suffer, to varying degrees, from specific learning difficulties (dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, attention, deficit disorder, etc.),
2. Points out that the adoption of policies and the taking of measures to promote the reconciliation of professional and private life will also constitute a decisive contribution to tackling the demographic problem faced by the majority of the Member States;
3. Considers that family policy should create preconditions to enable parents to spend more time with their children and that in many cases a more equal division of parents' time between paid work and caring for their children would lead to better contact between parents and children and also have a positive impact on family formation and family stability;
5. Encourages the Commission to draw up, on the basis of the indicators on combining professional and family life adopted by the European Council in 2000, a follow-up report on the situation in the Member States and the accession states, and at the same time encourages the Member States to develop various forms of cooperation and networks for the exchange of good practice, in order to obtain accurate information on the actual situation;
6. Calls on the Member States and accession states to reconsider the national systems for gathering data and gradually to perfect them, in order to ensure that statistics on the nine indicators adopted by the European Council in 2000 can be produced every year; also calls on the Member States and the accession states to create Internet sites incorporating data banks on existing support structures;
7. Encourages the Member States and accession states to analyse the impact of their policies on families (family mainstreaming), while at the same time calling on them to separate gender mainstreaming and family mainstreaming; also calls on the Commission, in the context of its communication of 2002 on impact assessment1, to take account of the various dimensions and definitions of the family in order to identify the social impact of the measures proposed;
9. Calls upon the EU institutions to promote their employees’ possibilities for combining work, family and personal life in a lifetime perspective with innovative models for working time and work organisation, bearing in mind that both genders must have equal possibilities and responsibilities and that as a minimum provision the social policies acquis of the Union is fully reflected in the working conditions of all its staff;
10. Calls on the Commission to organise an annual conference on ‘Reconciling work and family life’ together with the European social partners, the Member States, NGOs and representatives of the EP’s competent committees in order to take stock of progress made and to analyse and find solutions to outstanding problems;
11. Recommends that the Commission should conduct an awareness-raising campaign and introduce pilot projects to facilitate the balanced participation of women and men in professional and family life;
12. Urges the Member States and accession states to promote information and awarenessraising campaigns in order to change attitudes so as to bring about better sharing of family responsibilities within couples among both the general population and the specific target groups;
13. Observes that private households can also be a source of qualified jobs in the field of running the household, bringing up children and care, and calls on the Member States to promote home economics as an occupational field;
14. Suggests that each Member State and accession state should draw up an information and awareness-raising guide for the social partners, business leaders, human resources directors and employees, setting out arguments in favour of promoting good practice with the aim of reconciling professional and family life more effectively;
15. Notes that, alongside support for parents in caring for children and persons in need of care in the form of regular allowances and tax exemptions or reductions, a new way should be found to offer parents greater freedom of choice, for example in the form of cash benefits or vouchers (childcare vouchers, vouchers for the recruitment of home helps, service vouchers or coupons) and that moreover those who opt to work within the family and to bring up children must enjoy the same social protection in old age as those who have been gainfully employed;
16. Recommends the adoption of fiscal policies which do not discriminate against the family and do not penalise households on the basis of size; welcomes the policies with social aims of this kind already adopted successfully by the Member States and by regional and municipal authorities, within the scope of their respective competences; furthermore, without prejudice to respect for the principle of subsidiarity, considers that if there are discriminatory weightings in policies governing taxation, other levies and tariffs, they should be of a positive nature, favouring families and their unifying role, and never
negative forms of discrimination penalising families, in particular larger households;
17. Also stresses the need to introduce specific allowances in all the Member States and accession states, especially for children with disabilities, families with a large number ofchildren or multiple births and to help low-income families with three children or more;
18. Notes the specific needs of single-parent families, mostly women, and hence calls on the Member States and accession states to increase aid to such families, to increase the credit given for periods spent bringing up children and to guarantee individual social security rights;
26. Urges the Member States and the accession states to facilitate access to paid parental leave with a non-transferable portion, respecting freedom of choice for parents, as well as access to other forms of long-term leave, including career breaks, as well as special short-term
leave (leave for breast-feeding or if a family member is ill), whilst envisaging a degree of flexibility in the organisation of leave, in order to facilitate the resumption of work by returnees to the labour market;
29. Recalls that the realisation of learning through the entire working life as well as access for women to the information society, is possible only if study leave is financially viable, either through public funding or through employment-related arrangements;
31. Considers it essential to promote quality part-time work for both men and women; stresses, however, that part-time work may be an effective way of reconciling family and employment and promoting equality of opportunity only if people with all levels of qualification are offered part-time work, if long-term career prospects are not affected, the level of social protection provided is reasonable and the workload is manageable;
32. Criticises the fact that the issue of assistance for the oldest section of the population is not receiving the attention it deserves, and urges the Member States to promote adequate provision of high-quality services, including domestic help for the elderly, provided by staff with adequate training;
33. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the Governments of the Member States and the accession countries.
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