Declaration English - EZA

DECLARATION OF KÖNIGSWINTER 2010We, hereby, members of the Platform for Equal Opportunities ofEZA gathered in Königswinter on the seminar entitled “"Flexible withsafety" – young and elderly workers and the challenges of flexicurity andits chances and risks”, debating on flexicurity strategy support and betterand more fair presence of female workers in the labour market in Europe.Currently the flexicurity concept is developing and practical steps arebeing taken by governments and social partners companies in order toimplement it.In this respect, we need to base on good legal framework and onsocial dialogue in order to incorporate flexicurity into the social policiesat European, national, branch and company level.Thus, members of IPEO, emphasise the need of widening anddeepening the practice of flexicurity in own countries. EZA will be thespace for harmonising our actions in full recognition of the Europeansocial model.In line of the above mentioned during the seminar of Königswinter,we have defined several key actions concerning flexicurity as follows:- flexicurity should support the reconciliation of family andwork both mothers and fathers through flexible workingtime arrangements- employment security ensures better perspective as jobsecurity including atypical work- transfer of good practices among the respective countries inorder to modernise the social security system throughrecognition of the maternity/paternal leave period for theseniority and calculation of the pension

- secure contractual forms against a segmentated labour forvulnerable groups like less skilled workers, older workers,especially women, informally employed etc- in full respect of the human capital, we would supportmeasures of LLL which helps unemployed persons toreintegrate into labour market as much as possibleaccording to their skills- external institutional support of secure transition from jobto job- active labour market measures are needed for examplefostering micro enterprise funding as well as encouragingself employment initiatives which answer a new need ofthe societyWe support the mainstreaming of flexicurity strategies through seminarson equal opportunities and other activities taken up individually orjointly.Königswinter,10. 01. 2010