Believes that one priority should be the fight to eradicate poverty, by revising the macroeconomic, monetary, social and labour policies that are at its root, in order to ensure economic and social justice for women; believes that the methods used to determine poverty rates should be re-examined and that strategies should be developed to promote a fair distribution of income, guarantee minimum income, pay and decent pensions, create more high-quality jobs with rights for women, ensure access to high-quality public services for all women and young girls, and improve social welfare and respective local services, particularly crèches, nurseries, day centres, communit ...[+++]y and leisure centres, and family support services;

The following maps (based on scenarios of annual employment growth of 1% or 1,5% starting from 2003) indicate which regions are expected to have the highest employment rates up to 2010, and therefore likely to face the largest deficits of skilled labour: for example south of UK, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, central France, southern Germany, western Austria and the centre of Portugal.

Cities compete with each other to attract investment and offer incentives such as greenfield sites where construction costs are lower for new commercial projects. However, the siting of employment, retail and leisure centres outside urban areas, for instance around motorway junctions, undermines the economic viability of the city centre as a commercial district, encourages car use and excludes citizens who do not have access to a car from these jobs and services.

Cities compete with each other to attract investment and offer incentives such as greenfield sites where construction costs are lower for new commercial projects. However, the siting of employment, retail and leisure centres outside urban areas, for instance around motorway junctions, undermines the economic viability of the city centre as a commercial district, encourages car use and excludes citizens who do not have access to a car from these jobs and services.

2.8. The CoR expects that both the linking of the existing central areas with those in the applicant countries and the development of the "new centre" will from the outset have a significant impact on employment, the development of self-employment and new business start-ups.

The following are examples of measures being envisaged: reforming the occupational health system to incorporate short-term jobs; promoting the employment of the disabled; development of an action model based on joint responsibility on part of various actors within society and changing the funding responsibilities of benefit systems in order to increase the chances of employment for those who are at the risk of exclusion from the labour market; drawing up integrated housing strategies in municipalities based on the use of the existing housing stock; examination of nationwide development needs and of student welfare at the levels of pr ...[+++]e-school instruction, basic schooling and upper secondary schooling; and establishment of a centre working closely with NGOs to study and monitor poverty and social exclusion.