European Family Conference
Social inclusion of families and EU Policies: Where do we stand?

Conference Proceedings (EN) (FR)
Final Programme (EN) (FR) (NL)
Framework Document (EN) (FR) (NL)
COFACE Leaflet (EN) (FR) (NL)

The European Family Conference held on 14 and 15 October 2010 at the Palais d'Egmont in Brussels was a resounding success. It was a milestone event in the history of COFACE, resuming a series of similar conferences which had started in 1987, but for the first time formed part of the official programme of the rotating Presidency of the EU -Belgium in this case- with support from the European Commission.

The Conference was attended by nearly 200 participants who came to hear about and discuss the various issues addressed by COFACE in its working groups over the last three years under the EU’s Progress Programme. As the focus was on social inclusion of families and the relevant key role of family policies, all the topics discussed explored that aspect more deeply. It was the focal point of our input to the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion.

Opening the event, Melchior Wathelet welcomed the topics chosen and emphasized that family policies crucially cut across all policy spheres.

After two standout speakers representing the Belgian family organisations, EU Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Commissioner László Andor gave a speech focused on how the crisis was affecting families and children and the need to restore confidence in the future. He spoke about the activities of the European Alliance for Families and the demographic situation, pointing out that the member states who best supported families through work-life balance measures had the highest birth rates. He said that COFACE thought the same way, and was confident that together we could make things better.

Françoise Castex MEP also highlighted the demographic situation, arguing that the problems of aging, declining birth rates and the economic problems it brought with it could not be looked at in statistical, purely technocratic terms. It must never be forgotten that what we are dealing with is people, she said. That, she urged, is the approach that will enable the fairest possible family policy to be made.

The future President of the European Economic and Social Committee, Staffan Nilsson, aptly illustrated the lives of European families with particular reference to his own, showing his immense empathy for the hardships - but also the joys and happiness – that are the daily lot of all families.

The opening session was closed by two keynote speeches that tied into one another: firstly, Jérôme Vignon, Chairman of France’s “Semaines Sociales”, offered some outstanding thoughts on families, family life and family policies in a European community of values. He touched particularly on practical parenting, children's right to a quality family life and solidarity between generations. He also highlighted recent changes in the EU regarding the approach to family matters. He said that the Union would benefit from giving more weight to the basic whys and wherefores that families embody in terms of social wellbeing and society’s ability to look to the future, emphasising that European family forms were part and parcel of the European model of society.

Then, the President of EAPN, Ludo Horemans, set our Conference as a whole in the context of the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion, pointing out the scale these scourges were reaching in our prosperous Europe and calling European policy makers to account over the policies to be run under the new EU2020 Strategy.

On Day Two of the conference, participants split up into four interactive themed workshops, facilitated by the four working group Chairs. Contributions on topics around family and social policies; a family perspective on consuming and health; people with care needs and their carers; migration, education and new technologies were introduced by mini-documentaries to set the issues covered in each workshop in context. Four experts were invited to inform the discussions that took place between COFACE members attending the Conference and representatives of other European NGOs, academics and representatives from the European institutions.

The morning’s discussions were rounded off with an exchange of good practices and a recap of policy positions relevant to each workshop. The key points of the workshops were then reviewed in the report by our two policy officers, vetted by the working group Chairs.

A big highlight of the European Family Conference was the keynote speech given by our President, Yves Roland-Gosselin, to an audience made up of all European stakeholders in the social and family arena.

The Hungarian Minister for Social Affairs, Miklóz Soltész, also reiterated the commitment of his country towards families. “The Hungarian Presidency will be a presidency that will add to the progress of our Belgian colleagues. We will make families our focus, particularly highlighting the demographic aspect" insisted Minister Soltész.

"Not only will we support COFACE’s initiative to make the year 2014 the European Year of the Family, but we will also defend it fervently throughout our presidency. I can already tell you that in Hungary, the year 2011 will be entirely devoted to families. We have planned to hold an expert forum about the subjects of disability and family carers and we also intend to have an interactive platform, which will deal with these matters. We plan to bring together all 27 ministers in charge of family policy in order to draft an opinion project about demographic matters”.

Belgium’s Secretary of State for Family Policy, Melchior Wathelet, closed the session by relishing the “coming” common struggle on family issues at both European and national levels:

“I have really and truly been won over by the COFACE triangle approach, which promotes services, time and resources as the three fundamental pillars of any family policy. As the spokesperson for Belgian Presidency of the EU and the Belgian Secretary of State for Family Policy, I can only express my joy that the key message in this conference is that families represent the greatest investment for the future of the Union”.

Closing the conference, COFACE urged the top policy-makers of the EU institutions to declare 2014 the European Year of Families and so celebrate the 20th anniversary of the International Year of the Family.