EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL POLICY COUNCIL : MINISTERS PREPARE SPRING EUROPEAN COUNCIL.

• Position: Conference notes

The Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council focused, on 8 March, on preparing the spring European Council (25-26 March) and the tripartite social summit that will precede it. The ministers are also adopted a directive to protect health care workers from injuries caused by needles and other sharp instruments, as well as conclusions on eradicating violence against women.

The 27 participants discussed the impetus to be given to their area of competence, based on the new ten-year economic strategy, Europe 2020', just presented by the Commission. Among the key objectives of this strategy: to raise employment among Europeans aged 20 to 64 years to 75% by 2020 and to bring 20 million people out of poverty. They also based their discussions on two other documents: the contributions by the Employment Committee and the Social Protection Committee and an information document by the Spanish Council Presidency outlining the ideas identified at the informal meeting in Barcelona. The latter contains the objectives the ministers wished to see in the new strategy (precise objectives and clearly identifiable and quantifiable measures, recognition of social dialogue and incentives for investments, etc).

The debate also gave ministers an opportunity to prepare the tripartite social summit, which has to be attended for the first time by European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, and to adopt two reports, one on employment and another on social protection and social inclusion. The first gives an overview of the problems being encountered by national employment policies in today's crisis and the second recommends reinforcement of social protection and new measures to protect pension schemes.

GENDER EQUALITY

Following on from International Women's Day (8 March), the Council exchanged views and adopt conclusions on eradicating violence...