Brussels, 22/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - By adopting the report by Fiorella Ghilardotti (Italy, PES), at its last session, on the Commission communication "Acting at local level for employment - Providing the European strategy for employment with a local dimension", the European Parliament regretted that the European employment strategy was not sufficiently known at regional and local levels. It calls, mainly: a) on Member States, in their national plans for employment, to state the degree of participation of regional and local authorities; b) on the Commission to encourage the partners of the Territorial Pacts in future to place more importance on qualitative and long-term approaches; c) on the social partners to support the search for adapted solutions at local level, notably through negotiations on atypical forms of work and by setting up support structures at local and regional levels. Parliament also stresses the important role of SMEs in implementing the employment strategy, encouraging the creation and management of Internet sites at local and regional levels and pleads in favour of experiments on new financial instruments like common local investment funds or venture capital funds for social purposes.