LARGE FAMILIES

09/02/2006: Meeting of the European Large Families Confederation with Commissioner Špidla and MEPs. Marie Panayotopoulos - Cassiotou MEP and José Ribeiro e Castro MEP Following the meeting of EPP-ED Members Marie Panayotopoulos - Cassiotou, Zuzana Roithová and José Ribeiro e Castro with the Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs Vladimir Špidla on October 19 2005, a meeting has been agreed between the Commissioner and the European Large Families Confederation (ELFAC) to take place on February 6 2006.

The Board Members of ELFAC - formally created in Lisbon on March 27 2004 - went to the European Parliament in Brussels on the invitation of Mrs Panayotopoulos-Cassiotou and Mr Ribeiro E Castro.

On this occasion, representatives of ELFAC - which is comprised of several European associations - presented MEPs with their objectives and activities - the promotion of equal treatment for all large families. Their goal is the exchange of ideas on the improvement of family situations in Europe. In addition, they presented the difficulties that large families experience in various Member States such as discrimination, difficulties in access to education, the unsuitable pensions systems, the absence of special measures for large families on housing, electricity and public transport, the lack of favourable fiscal measures (i.e. taxes), etc.

Although all speakers agreed that family policy was to remain a national policy, they insisted, however, on the need for carrying out exchanges of good practices and creating a framework action of support for family life at European level. In addition, they expressed the wish that discrimination which affects large families be abolished and that their specificity, and in particular their vulnerability, be recognised. Lastly, the ELFAC representatives indicated that they wished for better recognition by the Community Institutions of the family's key role in maintaining social cohesion.

FAMILIES AND POVERTY

15/02/2006 Joint meeting of the Intergroup on Family and Protection of Childhood and the Fourth World European Committee Intergroup.

The meeting of the Intergroup on Family and Protection of Childhood which focused on the topic of "families and poverty" took place in Strasbourg, on Wednesday the 15th of February under the chairmanship of Mrs Panayotopoulos - Cassiotou (EPP-ED) and Mr Mendez de Vigo (EPP-ED). The meeting fostered interventions by Mr Johannes Berchtold from the Austrian Ministry of Social Security, Generations and Consumer Protection, Mrs Maryse Huet from DG Employment and Social Affairs (European Commission) and Mrs Maria Teresa Lopez of the Foundation "Accion Familiar".

Mrs Lopez presented the major changes which have occurred in the social and demographical behaviours of families, which are characterized by more instable family compositions, reduced birth rates and a high number of children born outside marriage. In her intervention, she insisted on the policies that the Member States should develop to prevent poverty and stressed that by supporting families, one supports employment, social solidarity, the redistribution of wealth among generations, a sustainable economic development and greater social cohesion.

In his contribution, Mr Berchtold insisted on the necessity to preserve intergenerational solidarity and to reduce the poverty of families through the adoption of specific measures including, among others, the creation of synergies between the political, economic and social sectors, and a greater security and flexibility in employment and working hours. Mr Berchtold also reminded the essential role of families in terms of socialization and solidarity and insisted on the necessity to give a greater importance to fathers in the family environment. Finally, he informed the assembly of the activities of the new partnership " Alliance Family and Employment" which gathers the participation of Austria, France, Germany, Hungary and Italy and enables the exchange of good practices and the development of collaborations with NGOs.

Mrs Huet indicated that the action of the European Commission which supports the action of the Member States, aims in particular, at improving the situation of families and children with economic difficulties by increasing the participation in the labour market, specially for women, a better conciliation of family and professional life, the modernization of social security schemes, the improvement of education and access to decent housing and to quality social and health services. Mrs Huet also stressed that the European Commission is currently preparing a "Charter on the Rights of the Child" as well as a Communication based on the results of the consultations on the Green Book on Demography.

Mrs Zaborska, Chairwoman of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, mentioned some elements of her report on the topic of "women and poverty", adopted by the EP. She referred to the importance of families as "teachers" of social values, to the role of women in the preservation of the economic and social cohesion of families as well as to the need to create partnerships with the least disadvantaged citizens. Finally, Mrs Bauer presented the situation of families in the new Member States with a particular focus on children whose level of poverty is higher that the EU average and who often live in disastrous conditions.

The meeting ended with interventions of NGO representatives who insisted on the importance to increase the participation of parents in the labour market, on the necessity to provide for a minimum income to help guarantee the standard of living of children and to improve the assistance for families by appropriate services.

UNIVERSAL CHILDREN’S DAY

21/11/2005: Let us protect our children from the dangers of the new information technologies – Written Declaration tabled by the Intergroup Family and Protection of Childhood in the EP.

The Universal Children’s Day, considered as a day of activities devoted to the promotion of the welfare of the children of the world, is organised every year on the 20th of November to mark the day of the adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the UN General Assembly 16 years ago. This day gives the opportunity to sensitise public opinions to the cause, as mentioned in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, of the protection of children, respected in their individuality as human beings, by their families and society as a whole.

The Intergroup on "Family and Protection of Childhood" in the European Parliament, chaired by MEP Mrs Panayotopoulos - Cassiotou (EPP/ED), wishing to contribute to the celebrations of the Universal Children’s Day, tabled a written Declaration on "the new information technologies and their impact on children".

This Declaration aims, on the one hand, at alerting the Members of the European Parliament-representatives of European citizens-, the Member States of the EU, the European Commission and the Council on the dangers children are confronted with when using the media and more particularly the internet and to remind that " internet governance" as debated in the World Summit on Information Society in Tunis, implies a fight against cybercrimes, in which the violations of the rights of children should specifically be included.

On the other hand, the written Declaration suggests the adoption of security, surveillance, reporting and information measures enabling children to fully benefit from the educational, entertainment, socialization and other aspects of new technologies whilst avoiding their falling victims of abuses of any kind on the web. Indeed, no matter how comfortable and autonomous new generations are with the use of the media and mainly the internet, they can, because of a frequent lack of parental control, involuntarily be confronted with illegal images or content which can provoke deep and eventually irreversible trauma.

Considering this problem, the members of the Intergroup stress the fact that public authorities, media professionals, educators and parents, must have a shared responsibility in the field of media content and consumption.

Mrs Panayotopoulos-Cassiotou and the other signatory Members also demand that national and EU actors be encouraged to coordinate the establishment of specific media training programmes for parents, educators and children and to launch information campaigns on the dangers of new technologies. As for internet access providers, they should deliver free parental control software and internet site suppliers should proceed with the automatic filtering of their internet sites.

Finally, the European Commission is invited to adopt measures, among others through the SAFER INTERNET plus programme, aiming at stimulating the exchange of best practices among Member States on new technologies and the protection of children and to promote the creation of means for reporting and lodging complaints.

With this Written Declaration, the Intergroup on "Family and the Protection of Childhood" wishes to remind that children represent our future and that all should work in favour of a healthy information environment, allowing children to develop their aptitudes and competences without dangers in order to be prepared to address the challenges of tomorrow's society, and invites all the Members of the European Parliament to support the Declaration.

INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON FAMILY, EDUCATION AND GENDER

16/11/2005: The International Symposium on "Family, Education and Gender" which was organised by the Higher Institute for Family of the University of Cataluña took place in Barcelona on Saturday the 12th of November 2005. Mrs Panayotopoulos - Cassiotou, MEP and President of the Intergroup "on family and the protection of childhood" and Mr Ribeiro e Castro, MEP and Head of the CDS-partido popular in Portugal, both members of the EPP/ED participated in this international meeting.

In her opening speech, Mrs Panayotopoulos - Cassiotou reminded that the EU aims at becoming, by 2010, the world's most dynamic and competitive knowledge based economy respectful of the environment and of the European social model. However, in parallel with this ambition, one has to face the increasing danger of the decline of the European demography as underlined in the Green Book on Demography, and therefore, the significant reduction of the active population.

The difficulties which will appear, as a consequence of the increase of the structural imbalance of the age pyramid, in the fields of the renewal of the work force, the financing of pensions and intergenerational solidarity, call for the strengthening of existing community policies- such as the eradication of all forms of discrimination in the labour market, the respect of the principle of equality between men and women, the reconciliation of family and professional life, the promotion of young people and the protection of children, as well as the reform of the pension schemes.
Mr Ribeiro e Castro, who was invited to close the debate, expressed his concerns over the fact that the European social model could disappear because of the incapability for future generations to finance it.

He also indicated that he regretted the poor attention given to families by the public authorities and underlined the necessity to take coordinated actions at international and European level on the topic of "family, education and gender". Finally, he presented an initiative on this regard: the request which was addressed to the European Commission to promote the establishment of a Large Families Forum.

Both MEPs, Mrs Panayotopoulos - Cassiotou and Mr Ribeiro e Castro called for the integration of the family dimension into all community policies, the analysis and comparison of effective family policies and the exchange of good practices between Member States.

THE EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN

15/12/2005: The meeting of the Intergroup on Family and Protection of Childhood which focused on the "exploitation of children" took place in Strasbourg, on Wednesday the 14th of December under the chairmanship of Mrs Panayotopoulos-Cassiotou (EPP/ED). The meeting fostered interventions by Mrs Annachiara Cerri, Head of the Section "Children, Families and the Elderly" of the Council of Europe, Mrs Karin Johansson Administrator at the Department of Crime Problems of the Council of Europe and Mr. Eddy Laurijssen, Director of the Bureau of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Brussels.

During her intervention, Mrs Cerri reminded that 155 million children live in the 46 Members States of the Council of Europe, and that the Organization had taken therefore a strong commitment to promote their rights. Hence, she referred to the programme that was developed by the Council of Europe and which will be launched in Monaco in April 2006, entitled "Building a Europe for and with children" which aims at asserting children's status as rights holders who must be awarded the same respect for their human dignity and physical integrity as adults. In addition, she mentioned the recent recommendations and resolutions which were adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on the rights of the child, such as the Recommendation on the " protection and assistance for separated children seeking asylum" and the Resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly (AP(2005)1 on "safeguarding adults and children with disabilities against abuse". Finally, Mrs Cerri presented the programme "Children and violence" which is currently being developed and which is focused on 4 priorities (4P): Protection of the children, Prevention of violence, Prosecution of criminal and Participation of children.

As far as Mrs Johanssen is concerned, she developed the actions undertaken by the Council of Europe regarding some criminal activities such as the Convention on Cybercrime which contains an article on child pornography. She reminded the adoption by the Council of Europe on the 3rd of May 2005, of the Convention on Action against trafficking in Human beings which is open to the signature of States. Finally, Mrs Johanssen explained that the conclusions of the conferences which were organised by the Council of Europe in July 2005 in Ljubljana in Slovenia on violence against children and sexual exploitation, would serve as a basis for the future work of the Council of Europe in the fight against sexual exploitation and abuse of children.

The meeting helped highlight the various types of exploitation of children among which, the worst are bad treatment, negligence, domestic or agricultural work and prostitution. On this regard, Mr Laurijssen mentioned more particularly slavery, the use of children by drug smugglers, forced recruitment of children in armed conflicts and commercial sexual exploitation of children as the worst forms of child labour. However, according to him, there is no need to prohibit all forms of labour but it is necessary to establish criteria on acceptable and unacceptable labour. He also reminded that one should pay particular attention to the contamination of children by infectious diseases such as AIDS. Finally, he addressed the interactions between the ILO standards on child labour and the commitments of States within the UN Convention on the Rights of Children as well as the development of common actions with the UE.

BETTER FUTURE FOR LARGE FAMILIES.

19/10/05: A topic of discussion between Zuzana Roithova, Marie Panayotopoulos - Cassiotou, José Ribeiro e Castro and Commissionner Spidla.

Yesterday afternoon (19/10/05) Zuzana Roithova (Czech Republic), Marie Panayotopoulos - Cassiotou (Greece) and José Ribeiro e Castro (Portugal), EPP-ED Members of the European Parliament, met the Czech Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs Vladimir Spidla to discuss the difficulties encountered by large families in various fields and gave him an overview of their particular needs.

In this meeting, the MEPs called the attention of the Commissioner to the specific problems of large families in Europe such as social security, equal treatment, unfavourable tax policies, conciliation of family and professional life etc.

Mr José Ribeiro e Castro presented the European Large Families Associations Confederation (ELFAC) to the Commissioner and expressed the interest of the organization to discuss and establish a collaboration with the Commission, proposal to which Vladimir Spidla responded positively.

Recognizing the fact that Family Policies are competence of Member States and that it should remain so, all participants agreed with Mrs Marie Panayotopoulos - Cassiotou’s proposal that the Commission should contribute to divulge and promote good practices within the EU and help Member States to adapt their policies to large families.

Mrs Roithova stressed the need for co-operation and co-ordination of good practices at the European level and insisted on the necessity of supporting the actions of national family organizations on this regard.
All three MEPs insisted on the importance of family, not only in demographical terms, but also as a factor of social cohesion.

As a response to Mr Ribeiro e Castro’s proposal of holding a European Large Families Forum supported by the Commission, Commissioner Spidla informed the present MEPs that he found the idea interesting and would consider it within the framework of the monitoring and evaluation of the Green Book on Demography.

THE FUTURE OF EUROPE DEPENDS ON YOUNG PEOPLE

14/07/2005: The meeting of the intergroup on "Family and the protection of Childhood" which took place during the European Parliament's plenary session in Strasbourg, gathered the participation of the Commissioner for Education and Culture Mr Jan Figel, Mr Martin Toman, representative of the World Youth Alliance and Mr Bruno Lachesnaie, Vice Director of the Department on social development and public services of the French Agricultural scheme (CCMSA) and founding member of the European Network of Agricultural social protection schemes.

The meeting aimed at getting acquainted with the European Youth Pact which was adopted at the Spring European Council in March 2005.

The Commissioner, Mr Figel, while presenting the European Youth Pact, underlined that Europe's future increasingly depends on its ability to foster societies that are child and youth friendly. With the adoption of this Pact, as part of the revised Lisbon Strategy, the European Council recognised that integrating young people in society and working life, and making better use of their potential are essential for ensuring a return to sustained and sustainable growth in Europe. Consequently, this initiative seeks to pursue actions in the areas of education, training and mobility, social advancement and promotion of young people, employment and reconciliation of family and working life. The Commissioner underlined that the success of this initiative, depended mostly on the mobilisation of youth organisations, regional and local authorities and the social partners. Furthermore, the Commissioner announced with enthusiasm that the "General Youth Assembly" will be held in Brussels and other regions of Europe, making use of new technologies.

Mr Toman presented the activities of the World Youth Alliance, a global organisation for young people. The speaker insisted on the fight against poverty and social exclusion which affect especially young people because of the high rates of unemployment.

Finally, Mr Lachesnaie pointed out the difficulties that young people meet especially in rural areas, such as the lack of financial facilities, less opportunities for high level education and training, less jobs and limited access to vocational training and career advancement. Mr Lachesnaie strongly invited the European Commission and the Member States to present specific priorities and measures regarding young people in rural areas.

Concluding the meeting, Mrs Panayotopoulos - Cassiotou, President of the Intergroup on “Family and the Protection of Childhood”, congratulated the Commissioner and the other participants for their interventions. Considering the demographic changes Europe is facing, Mrs Panayotopoulos-Cassiotou pointed out the fact that nowadays, it is more than ever necessary to promote an active involvement of young people in the economic life. The freshness of their ideas and honesty could contribute to the creation of a dynamic, social and open Europe.