The targets of the EU employment policy were set in the employment policy strategy defined at the Lisbon and Stockholm European Councils and in the European Employment Guidelines. 

The EU employment strategy has defined three overarching targets:

·    full employment;

·    quality and productivity of work;

·    social cohesion and inclusion.

In March 2004 the European Council indicated that efficient measures have to be taken in order to create more and better work places because, as it is already clear, the EU will not meet the objective of the transitional period for 2005–2010 – to ensure the set employment level requiring the creation of additional 15 million new work places.

The new member states are preparing their National Employment Plans. All the Baltic States closely relate the implementation of these plans in 2004 – 2006 to the use of resources from the European Social Fund.

In order to provide an additional contribution to efficient solving and analysing of labour market-related problems, the Baltic Assembly recommends to carry out in the Baltic States research in the following areas:

-    monitoring of the labour market – short-term and long-term forecasts of supply and demand in the labour market, and recommendations on the possible geographic mobility of the labour force;

-    improvement of mechanisms for balancing work with family life under the conditions of a free market economy;

-    establishment of a support system for creating work places in less-favoured border areas, as well as possible mechanisms of co-operation among those areas;

-    impact of the Baltic States tax policy on the development of the labour market and the impact of tax policy on the migration of qualified labour force;

-    working conditions and occupational risks and their interrelation in the Baltic States;

-    impact of demand in the labour markets of the Baltic States and the European Union on study programmes and their financing in institutions of higher education;

-    widening the range of measures for promoting employment in order to integrate problem groups of the unemployed into the labour market.

Riga, 19 December 2004