Brussels, 25/03/2004
Today, during the meeting of the tripartite social summit for growth and employment, representatives of ETUC, UNICE/UEAPME and CEEP met the President of the European Council, Mr Ahern, and the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, to take stock of implementation of the Lisbon strategy and present the social partners' contributions to the Spring European Council.
In the fourth year of the Lisbon strategy, the EU is far from reaching the goal of becoming the most competitivess economy in the world based on economic growth, full employment; innovation, knowledge and social cohesion. The tripartite social summit debated how to give a fresh impetus to the Lisbon strategy. The overarching theme chosen by the Irish presidency was “Towards a European Partnership for Change”.
Aware of their responsibilities and eager to contribute to implementation of the Lisbon strategy, ETUC, CEEP and UNICE/UEAPME presented two joint contributions to the Spring European Council:
- the second annual report on the actions taken by the social partners to promote the lifelong development of competences and qualifications following on from the framework of actions on this theme agreed by the European social partners in 2002;
- a first report on social partners initiatives in the Member States that are relevant for implementation of the European employment guidelines.
The European social partners reiterated their support for the Lisbon strategy and agreed to assess, during the tripartite social summit in March 2005, the progress made, with special focus on the follow-up to the recommendations of the Employment Task Force.
The reports are available on the websites mentioned below and can be consulted there.