Brussels, 02/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Employment and Social Policy Council, to meet on 6 March in Brussels under the chairmanship of Mona Sahlin, Minister for Industry, Employment and Communications of Sweden, with Anna Diamantopoulou for the European Commission, will be essentially devoted to the preparation of the European Council of Stockholm. Work will be organised in the following way:
1. At 9h00, ministers will hold an open debate on pensions systems in Europe. The aim of the discussion on the theme "Safe and sustainable pensions and pension systems - a new area of European cooperation?" is to try to reach a common position on the pension systems in the Member States, given the ageing population of Europe.
2. At 11h00, the Standing Committee on Employment will meet with representatives of the European social partners and ministers to prepare the Stockholm Summit, on the basis of the synthesis report by the European Commission (see EUROPE of 8 February, p.6). The Presidency will draw the conclusions of this debate.
3. After lunch, attended by the social partners, the ministers will hold a policy debate on the preparation of the Stockholm Summit on the basis not only of the Commission's synthesis report but also of the reports by the Standing Committee on Employment and Social Protection, the scoreboard on implementation of the Social Agenda (see EUROPE of 26/27 February, p.13), the Commission's communication on "the new employment markets in Europe" (see EUROPE of 1 March, p.10) and results of a study on the viability of long term pensions.
Finally, the Council: - will note the working programmes of the Committee on Employment and the Committee on Social Protection for 2001; - is expected to result in a political agreement on the guidelines for a common position concerning Community measures for incentives in the employment sector; - will be informed by the Swedish Presidency of the state of progress of work concerning amendments to the regulation on the application of social security systems to migrant workers; - and will be informed by the Presidency of the results of three meetings organised in the context of preparations for the Stockholm Summit: the informal ministerial meetings on equal opportunities and social security (Norrköping, 21-23 January) and on Employment and Telecommunciations (Lulea, 15-17 February), and the conference on "Professional Life 2000 - Quality of Work" (Malmö, 22-24 January).