European Socialists to discuss childcare

The Party of European Socialists (PES) will hold its third regional decentralised seminar on childcare in Malta tomorrow.

The Socialist Group in the Committee of the Regions will participate in the event through several delegates.

The meeting will be opened by Maltese PES Group members Michael Cohen and Claudette Abela Baldacchino, president and vice-president of the Local Councils Association, respectively.

Mrs Abela Baldacchino, who took the initiative to organise the meeting in Malta, will chair the first panel of the seminar, which will demonstrate the benefits of investing in childcare.

Childcare, it is held, leaves more time for women to enter paid employment allowing them to increase the family income, provides jobs for childcare workers and generates more tax for the state through the jobs it creates.

This seminar is the fourth decentralised event organised by the PES in the framework of its 2007 childcare campaign. Childcare seminars have so far taken place in Bucharest, Sofia and Vilnius whereas another one will be organised in Berlin on Tuesday.