Europe-wide sharing of data on job vacancies, applications and CVs.

81. Calls on the Member States to ensure that employment and social policies are fit for purpose for digital innovation, entrepreneurship, and the growth of the sharing economy and its potential for more flexible forms of employment, by identifying new forms of employment and assessing the need for the modernisation of social and employment legislation so that existing employment rights and social welfare schemes can also be maintained in the digital world of work; highlights that the provision of social security is a Member State competence; asks the Commission to identify and facilitate exchanges of best practices in the EU in these ...[+++]areas and at international level;

40. Stresses that the active participation and involvement of men in reconciliation measures, such as part-time work, is crucial for achieving work-life balance, since both women and men could benefit from family-friendly employment policies and from equal sharing of unpaid work and household responsibilities; calls on the Commission and the Member States to take decisive policy action to fight gender stereotypes and encourage men to share equally in caring and domestic responsibilities, in particular through incentives for men to ta ...[+++]ke parental and paternity leave, which will strengthen their rights as parents, ensure a greater degree of equality between women and men and more appropriate sharing of family and housekeeping responsibilities, and enhance women’s opportunities to participate fully in the labour market; suggests that the Member States should correctly apply Council Directive 2010/18/EU on parental leave, through both legislative and educational measures relating to gender equality;

As has already been mentioned, earlier this month I hosted a lunch debate in Brussels with the Involvement and Participation Association for my fellow members of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs to share with them UK best practice and the benefits of flexibility, because that is the issue.

Here I very much agree with what Mrs Thorning-Schmidt has already said: it is not a matter of employment or a matter of Council meetings, it is a matter of real cooperation between the Member States.

As the economic guidelines and the employment guidelines will need to be consistent with each other, a procedure must be found which will entrust the Ecofin Council and the Social Affairs Council with shared responsibility for the annual drawing-up of the two sets of guidelines on the basis of annual reports from the Member States.