Poznan verklaring voor gelijke rechten aangenomen (en)
The 5 th European Equality Summit had the primary goal of fostering the idea of equality in the European Union. The event, held in Poznan on 14th and 15th November, was accompanied by an informal meeting of EU ministers responsible for implementing equality policies and counteracting discrimination.
The main theme of the Summit was ‘Implementation of Equality Policies at the Local and Regional Level’. That level of activity is crucial to the struggle against discrimination and the promotion of equality. It is there that national policies and programmes are put into practice, it is there that groups experiencing inequality organise themselves and voice their needs. It is the local and regional levels where the ideas of social advancement and change take root and develop. These conclusions, among others, were incorporated in the documents summing up the Summit: the Poznan Declaration, adopted on Tuesday, and the attached recommendations.
‘All the participating countries recognised as the norm the need to work at the local and regional levels. It's not sufficient to have good laws at the government level; you need to go lower and - for example - encourage the involvement of employers, trade unions and NGOs,’ commented Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Treatment Elzbieta Radziszewska.
The 5th European Equality Summit brought together some 260 official representatives of EU Member States, candidate countries, EEA states, international organisations, senior European NGO officers, social partners (employers and trades unions), institutions concerned with equality issues and representatives of the civil society. The next Summit in scheduled to take place in Cyprus in November 2012.
Konrad Niklewicz
Spokesperson for the EU Polish Presidency
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