The Chairman: From the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, not the Ministry of Community and Social Services?

20. Commends the religious harmony and the climate of religious tolerance and overall good inter-ethnic relations in the country; calls on the competent authorities to continue improving the climate of inclusion and tolerance for all minorities in the country; urges the government to adopt, following a broad consultation process, a comprehensive law on minorities to remedy existing legal gaps in line with the recommendations of the Advisory Committee of the Council of Europe Framework Convention on National Minorities, and to efficiently implement the Law on Protection from Discrimination and build solid anti-discrimination case-law; commends the contribution of the Commissioner for Protection from Discrimination to fighting discriminati ...[+++]on, including on grounds of gender, especially in employment, education and access to social services; encourages further steps to improve the living conditions of Roma by improving their access to registration, housing, education, the labour market and social and healthcare services; stresses that the living conditions of Roma also need to be improved via better coordination between central and local government and interministerial cooperation;

19. Commends the religious harmony and the climate of religious tolerance and overall good inter-ethnic relations in the country; calls on the competent authorities to continue improving the climate of inclusion and tolerance for all minorities in the country; urges the government to adopt, following a broad consultation process, a comprehensive law on minorities to remedy existing legal gaps in line with the recommendations of the Advisory Committee of the Council of Europe Framework Convention on National Minorities, and to efficiently implement the Law on Protection from Discrimination and build solid anti-discrimination case-law; commends the contribution of the Commissioner for Protection from Discrimination to fighting discriminati ...[+++]on, including on grounds of gender, especially in employment, education and access to social services; encourages further steps to improve the living conditions of Roma by improving their access to registration, housing, education, the labour market and social and healthcare services; stresses that the living conditions of Roma also need to be improved via better coordination between central and local government and interministerial cooperation;

20. Commends the religious harmony and the climate of religious tolerance and overall good inter-ethnic relations in the country; calls on the competent authorities to continue improving the climate of inclusion and tolerance for all minorities in the country; urges the government to adopt, following a broad consultation process, a comprehensive law on minorities to remedy existing legal gaps in line with the recommendations of the Advisory Committee of the Council of Europe Framework Convention on National Minorities, and to efficiently implement the Law on Protection from Discrimination and build solid anti-discrimination case-law; commends the contribution of the Commissioner for Protection from Discrimination to fighting discriminati ...[+++]on, including on grounds of gender, especially in employment, education and access to social services; encourages further steps to improve the living conditions of Roma by improving their access to registration, housing, education, the labour market and social and healthcare services; stresses that the living conditions of Roma also need to be improved via better coordination between central and local government and interministerial cooperation;

– having regard to the Commission communication entitled ‘Implementing the Community Lisbon programme: Social services of general interest in the European Union’ (COM(2006)0177 ) and the accompanying Commission staff working document on social services of general interest in the European Union (SEC(2006)0516),

1. Welcomes the publication of the Commission communication entitled 'Implementing the Community Lisbon programme: Social services of general interest in the European Union' (COM(2006)0177), which had already been signalled in the White Paper on services of general interest (COM(2004)0374), and which arises from the exclusion of social services from the scope of the amended proposal for a directive on services in the internal market, in connection with which the Council’s common position was a ...[+++]pproved at second reading by the European Parliament; welcomes the Commission's endeavours to conduct a consultation process with the Member States and with all the sectors involved, aiming to find a balance between the special characteristics of these services, which sometimes make them difficult to define in general terms, and the application of the principles of transparency, free competition and non-discrimination, which have mandatory force in the EU, and of Community law on the award of public contracts and concessions;