1. In view of the extraordinary meeting of the European Council on employment, economic reforms and social cohesion, COSAC expresses its support for the Union's new strategic aim of basing its economy and society of knowledge.
2. COSAC recognises the importance of commitment to a European research area, in which information technologies can develop as a form of modernisation, of combating social exclusion and of promoting economic and social cohesion.
3. COSAC calls on the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament to adopt a European agenda which promotes economic modernisation and growth, employment, improvements in education and vocational training and which combats all form of exclusion and discrimination.
4. COSAC believes that all Member States of the Union should adhere in the latter and spirit of the Treaties, with particular reference to the single European market.
5. COSAC considers that the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights presents an important opportunity to give citizens greater protection in relation to the European Union legal order, and to make fundamental rights more visible to the citizens of the Union and to the European institutions. The creation of the Charter might have broader implications in the future of the Union, and its connection with the European Convention on Human Rights should be safeguarded, through respect for the case law of the Courts of both Luxembourg and Strasbourg.
6. COSAC invites the European institutions and the IGC to take into account the efforts of the Convention responsible for drawing up the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
7. COSAC asks the Convention responsible for drawing up the Charter of Fundamental Rights to take the opinion of applicant countries and their parliaments on this question into account.
8. COSAC expresses its strong support for the enlargement process of the EU and urges the governments participating in the IGC to proceed with their work in order to make it possible to start the ratification procedures of the Treaty amendments early next year.