"Children Need Working Parents" strategy

Résumé du document

Childcare is a basic need of the 21st century family', said PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (PES, Press release 2006). The NGO 'Children Need Working Parents', aims at creating a right to parents to public childcare provision for children between 4 months and 6 years old, with an EU-wide upper-limit, with the potential costs to parents of 250 per month.

Extraits

[...] This method is designed to help Member States to progressively develop their own policies. Obviously this method is perfectly adapted to reach the objectives of the EU member states and institutions concerning gender equality and family policies. With this method, the Commission has a key role to play, notably with fixing guidelines and with monitoring, and it already takes over with these tasks on this topic. The states could potentially be satisfied and even willing to go on with this method, as it is an alternative to the two classical governances, meaning the community method and intergovernmentalism (DEHOUSSE, 2002). [...]

[...] This measure is exactly what Children Need Working Parents aims at. Another point which shows that the NGO and the German minister share the same view is that Ms. von der Leyen recently triggered the creation of the “European Alliance for Families (KUBOSOVA, 2007). This platform aims at creating an exchange of experience and opinions on all levels (the EU institutions, the member states, social partners, and civil society) as far as concrete projects and cooperation are concerned. The platform recognises the shared responsibility of parent and state in raising young children. [...]

[...] "Children Need Working Parents" strategy Content Introduction First Part: why? WHY WE NEED RECONCILIATION? WHAT IS THE EXTEND OF THE ACTION NEEDED IN THE DIFFERENT EU-MS? Second part: how? HOW TO GET LEGISLATION IN AN AREA THAT IS NOT AMONG EU COMPETENCES? A new method? The role of the Commission The role of the European Parliament USEFUL ALLIES AND THOSE TO CONVINCE. A necessary action in the member states Political parties allies Other associations and NGOs Conclusion Annexes Introduction “Childcare is a basic need for the 21st century family”, said PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (PES, Press release 2006). [...]

[...] In many European countries also, there is a very limited coverage for children under 3 years old. In Hungary of non-working women, when interviewed referred to a lack of public childcare, and put it as the reason for not working (Commission, September 2005). In Germany, there is still a strong difference between West ( of enrolment rate of young children) and East Germany (37 Yet the situation is currently changing a lot with the Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen who has provoked a strong debate in Germany and inside the conservative party with the decision to triple the public money dedicated to day care services. [...]

[...] Why we need reconciliation? Reconciliation of private and working life is the point at which two problems are meeting: the economic problem of a too low women employment rate and the demographic problem of a too low fertility rate. It is the point at which two major concerns of the whole EU can come in contradiction, and even clash. The demographic challenge that most European countries are now facing is the socalled “ageing society”. In other words, as the children of the “baby-boom” are now getting older and the fertility rate being rather low, there is a threat of no replacement of generation. [...]