Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-01-Speech-3-088"
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"en.20000301.6.3-088"2
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"Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner and the President-in-Office of the Council. At the beginning of this century, the French government sent out a beacon, a bombshell on the equality of opportunity policy front. For the first time, there must be equal representation of men and women on electoral lists. In taking this step, the Head of Government, Lionel Jospin, has also set down a marker for the European Union. It happens to be today that Finland’s newly elected President, Tarja Halonen, takes up office. And so the women in Finland have also set down a marker, for this is the first time they have had a female Head of State. Unfortunately, the same does not hold true everywhere. Sadly, less than 7% of the contenders for the next elections in Greece will be women. There, too, there is certainly a lot of catching up to be done. They did not follow the Council recommendation of 1996 on equal involvement for women and overcoming the under-representation of women.
Although women form the majority of the European population, they are still largely on the sidelines. When they aspire to higher office they soon hit the glass ceiling. We should fight to break through this glass ceiling. Unlike the previous speaker, it is my belief – and my Group is united on this – that we should set quotas, and binding quotas at that, for women have worked hard. Women have an outstanding profile in the European Union; we have demonstrated team spirit and have acquired decision-making powers and social competences. Binding quotas also require reliable statistics and must not be excluded from any sector of society.
We need this new social treaty, we need the fight for power, money and distribution of work, which must favour women. Looking back, I would say that the men could have given us solid support in this fight. Unfortunately, they have made little effort in this regard as well.
It is my hope that we will continue to work on the Beijing Action Platform and that we will have the vision to progress from having a Women’s Day to a Women’s Millennium."@en1
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