Brussels, 09/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - A joint Commission/Council report will be officially unveiled on Wednesday, looking at the efforts made by each Member State in terms of fighting poverty and social exclusion. The report will not contain any specific recommendations but will give an overview of different practise in this connection, to be assessed by the Laeken Summit in December 2001. Based on the same social indicators for all Member States, the document describes poverty in each Member State and the measures implemented to deal with it. The report also compares the outcomes of the different countries' action programmes in order to see which have had the most beneficial effect and should therefore become "codes of good practice" for the other Member States. Elements that greatly heighten the risk of falling into poverty have been identified in particular. Various countries list long-term unemployment as the most important element, alongside low quality jobs, bad pay, leaving school early and bad health. Other elements arising from structural changes (the extension of life expectancy, the falling birth rate and the threats to the funding of pensions) need to be added to these more "traditional" elements. Poverty is therefore multidimensional, and the report stresses the need to attack poverty on various levels, including in the long-term. EUROPE will return to the contents of the report in more detail.