Documents

The Draft Law of the Ministry of Development amends existing provisions on the operation of special forms of commerce (such as open-air shops, mobile shops etc.), as well as the hours of operation of shops.

The problems of the demographic development of Bulgaria have been a subject of constantly growing concern since the sixties of the last century due to the decreased birth rate and the delay in the growth rates of the Bulgarian population. Most of the assessments made by the academic circles as well as the objectives and the actions of the demographic policy realised on the part of the government point to the presence of a sustainable, objective and of growing potential trend towards aggravating the demographic situation in Bulgaria.<br>That is the main reason why the Economic and Social Council voicing the interests of the organized civil society in Bulgaria has undertaken to work up, adopt and present to the institutions concerned an Opinion with an assessment of the demographic trends and problems as well as proposals for overcoming them in the coming years and decades.

This report sets out from a diagnostic analysis of the current situation of agriculture and fisheries in the European Union. It reviews current agricultural and fisheries policy and describes the new rules being developed as part of the reorganisation of world markets. It then focuses on the Spanish situation in the farming, fisheries and food sectors, and finally it describes future scenarios and proposals for action which, in the opinion of the economic and social partners represented on the Council, are necessary to guarantee sustainable development in those sectors.

The Council praises the objective of combating smoking and positively assesses the intention behind the draft bill, but regrets that it focuses almost exclusively on sanctions and ignores the aspects of prevention and support for those addicted to tobacco. It there-fore calls for the removal of the total prohibition on smoking in workplaces because this may generate employment conflicts and because the issue is already being jointly ad-dressed by employers and their workers in a positive fashion.

The Draft Law makes changes to the mode of organisation and administration of the health and social care units. On the one hand, it leaves the regional organisation of the national health system unchanged, while on the other it changes the mode of administration of hospital units.

The Opinion expresses, among other things, the Greek ESC's basic positions on the interim evaluation of the Lisbon Strategy.

The Council believes that a senior citizens' policy that targets senior citizens exclusively is too little, too late? The position of older workers in the labour market and the income of retired senior citizens are in fact largely determined by the choices that these people have made earlier in life and during the course of their career. This long-term or lifelong perspective suggests that a future-oriented senior citizens' policy should not exclusively target senior citizens as a separate group, but also the younger generation of today, and therefore, in fact, all generations.