The text launched by EESC intends to start a strengthened community policy concerning the family, "avoiding ideological clashes" and focusing said an EESC source to SIR – on "the concrete support which may be guaranteed to family nuclei, taking into consideration also the decreasing birthrate affecting Europe". To tackle the "demographic winter" of the Old Continent, this opinion asks for "the timely carrying out of numerous and coordinated measures in the social, economic and environmental fields, as well as in relation to family policies and sex parity". According to the 344 members of the EESC meeting, the EU should "develop the open method of coordination, and submit an action plan relating to several years, proposing the measures already carried out by some member States". As for the Commission, it should "introduce a real European register for recording such measures, collecting the good practices relating to the family policy, the conciliation of family and professional life, equal opportunities and specific policies in favour of mothers and fathers taking charge of their own family responsibilities".
