“Pursuing a common strategy regarding family policies and children’s rights in the field of the activities of the Council of Europe”: that’s the commitment unanimously signed up to by the ministers responsible for family policies of the 46 member countries of the COE at the end of the Conference on “Changes in parenting: children today, parents tomorrow”, held in Lisbon on 16 and 17 May. The political Declaration of the government representatives underlines the need for measures aimed at the “sustainability of the family, as a response to current demographic trends”. It also underlines the need to promote employment to provide security of income, essential prerequisite for building families open to children. Interesting is also the document’s emphasis on public support for families: “parenting, correlated with family intimacy, ought to be considered in the sphere of public policies”. Other observations focus on the need to reconcile work and family life, the promotion of education, and – a more controversial aspect of the Declaration – the adjustment of national legislations “to the consequences of the diffusion of new types of family, such as the single-parent family or the duties to children in reconstituted families”.
