1. Welcomes the aim of the Communication on Social services of general interest to promote the modernisation of social services within the Community in order to provide services with a high level of quality, safety and efficiency, respecting consumer and user rights, patient dignity and the freedom to provide cross-border services; considers it desirable to ensure greater legal safety regarding services of general interest, in particular social services and medical and pharmaceutical treatmen ...[+++]t, by means of a proposal for a specific sectoral European Parliament and Council directive if necessary;

* While there is some interest in further clarification of the situation of organisations providing social services under Community law and in protecting non-economic services of general interest as part of the European social model, there is broad agreement that the Community should not be given additional powers in the area of non-economic services.

52. Calls for more research into therapeutic and psychological interventions, into the development of more effective drugs with fewer side effects, into determinants of mental disorders and suicide, into outcome measurements for investment in mental health promotion and into methods contributing to successful recovery and remission; calls, in particular, for special attention to be devoted to research into medicines more suitable for children; stresses, moreover, that research must not be confined to pharmaceuticals but must extend to epidemiological, psychological and economic studies on the community and the ...[+++]social determinants of mental illness; further calls for an increase in the involvement of service users in all aspects of mental health research;

The Communication would also set out, in line with the Commission's general principles on evaluation, a mechanism for a regular assessment and evaluation of the national frameworks for the provision of social services of general interest.

2. Member States may, in the light of national conditions, require that designated undertakings provide to consumers tariff options or packages which depart from those provided under normal commercial conditions, in particular to ensure that those on low incomes or with special social needs are not prevented from accessing the network referred to in Article 4(1) or from using the services identified in Article 4(3) and Articles 5, ...[+++]6 and 7 as falling under the universal service obligations and provided by designated undertakings.

For example: a research study on the identification of indicators of child vulnerability in order to make preventive intervention by educators, teachers, and parents more prompt and effective; research and transnational data collection producing a pilot study examining the problems of deliberate self-harm among young people in Europe; exposing the situation of unaccompanied migrant minors in the EU and focusing on asylum seeking or migrant children from three Member States; Muslim girls' negotiation between parents and social professionals; how ...[+++] to integrate different social services; how confidentiality is perceived and interpreted in cases of sexual abuse; the reviewing and refining of the first draft of an international manual for staff of residential institutions to combat sexual abuse of young people; . an analysis of the prosecution of reported rape cases across Europe to identify key problem areas and a plan of action; a structural plan for a lesbian anti-violence programme at EU level; compilation of statistical data on sexual harassment in the workplace.