commissioner thank you for your statement
i was very encouraged by your words but was very discouraged to notice that only twelve colleagues were here to hear it
that has now risen to the dizzy heights of eighteen meps to hear what is an important statement on an important subject
i was curious though that there was no reference unless i missed it to the council presidency comments of a month or so ago because i thought those remarks were also very helpful to the debate and they made the point very clearly that whilst the barcelona objectives had not yet been reached in some cases by a very long way it was very clear that a number of countries did not have any immediate plans to reach them and did not see that as a particular problem
the reason for that is and i quote from what the czech council presidency said no one should criticise the decision of those countries that fail to fulfil the barcelona objectives and do not intend to increase efforts for their fulfilment
there are countries whose citizens based on their historical experience are not interested in placing their children in day care
i think that is true
that does not mean of course that we should not try as hard as we can to encourage the provision of day care and make quality day care available for those who want to use it
i hope that you will agree commissioner that in the context of helping more women into the labour market and in the context of helping people with the important role of childcare that there are indeed many roads to paradise and there is not just the one road that we should exclusively concentrate upon
let us please explore all routes but let us keep paradise in mind so that the objectives we all share can indeed be fulfilled
