1. For the purposes set out in Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union, the activities of the Member States and the Union shall include, as provided in the Treaties, the adoption of an economic policy which is based on the close coordination of Member States' economic policies, on the internal market and on the definition of common objectives, and conducted in accordance with the principle of an open market economy with free competition.

Joint Social Protection Committee/Economic Policy Committee Opinion on the Commission Communication ‘Working together, working better: proposals for a new framework for the open coordination of social protection and inclusion’ endorsed by EPSCO on 10 March 2006.

The assessment of such progress within the existing processes and within the framework of the open method of co-ordination should feed into the overall policy co-ordination process, and the results of this work should be integrated into the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines.

The results negotiated with these candidates were as follows: all five chapters which were opened with Romania during the Portuguese Presidency were provisionally concluded, negotiations were provisionally concluded on six of the eight chapters opened with Slovakia, with only Competition Policy and Culture and Audiovisual Policy still outstanding; again, of the eight chapters opened, only Culture and Audiovisual Policy, External Relations and Competition were not provisionally concluded with Latvia and Lithuania; four of the six chapters opened were provisionally concluded with Bulgaria, leaving Culture and Audiovisual Policy and Exter ...[+++]nal Relations open; finally, of the eight chapters opened with Malta, only the negotiations on Culture and Audiovisual Policy were not provisionally concluded.

It would entrust to the twelve national central banks the task of implementing the monetary policy decided by its Council and its Board; - a regular dialogue between EuroFed and those responsible for economic policy in the Community with a view to promoting consistency between internal monetary policy and external exchange-rate policy and coordinated economic policies; - a single currency, the ecu, to exploit to the full the potential benefits of the single market and monetary union; - a sustained drive, within the framework of eco ...[+++]nomic union, to exploit the achievements of the single market and to continue to improve the competitiveness and dynamism of the Community economy; - in the budgetary policy field, a system of coordination and voluntary constraints designed to guarantee both consistency with the stability-oriented monetary policy and a satisfactory overall policy-mix, accompanied by selective reinforcement of the Community budget's role in order to contribute to macroeconomic convergence and cohesion.

*** *** *** - 9 - Table 2 Macroeconomic consequences of the completion of the EC internal market when accompanied by economic policy measures ________________________________________________________________ | Macro-economic consequences on : | ______________________________________________ | gdp Consumer Employ Public External | as prices ment (in Budget Balance | % as % millions) balance | (as % point of gdp) ________________|________________________________________________ Unaided by | accompanying | economic | policy | measures | 4.5 6.1 1.8 2.2 1.0 | With | accompanying | economic | policy | measures | 7.0 4.3 5.0 0.4 - O.2 _________ ...[+++]_______|_______________________________________________ Margin of error| +/- 30 % ________________|_______________________________________________ Source: Simulations conducted by the Commission's services on the HERMES and INTERLINK models.