Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-09-19-Speech-3-154"
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".
Mr President, I too should like to make a point of congratulating Mrs Smet, whose report demonstrates her personal knowledge of and experience in this matter.
The pay differential is the clearest and plainest expression of inequality between the sexes. We have heard data and analyses of the causes of the present inequality and I do not intend to repeat them. I intend to talk about what is being done today in terms of policy and planning. As you know, the fourth line of action in the strategy on employment, which relates to equal opportunities, has dealt with the issue of unequal pay since the strategy on employment was first implemented back in 1999. Over the years, from 1999 onwards, the Commission has evaluated the policies of each Member State on the question of equal pay. What we have found over the last three years is that several, not all of the Member States, have noticed the differential, have noticed the problem and have proposed policies and measures to combat it. The Commission refers specifically to this issue every year in its joint report on the basis of the data at its disposal and makes suggestions to the Member States as regards their policies.
The question which arises here is what tools does the Commission have at hand to make this assessment. And this, of course, is where we come up against the problem of indicators and statistics to which Mrs Smet referred. We need new subjects and new statistical analyses of them so that we can formulate the problem in absolute terms. The Commission is already working on this and I should like to give you one example. We need a statistical analysis of the ratio between men and women as regards the hourly wage for paid employees working longer than 15 hours. We need to analyse gross and net salaries in the public and private sectors and that means a breakdown by age, education, profession, economic activity, type of work and employment status. Very few countries have statistics in the form which I have referred to. And apart from the problem of the subject of the statistical analysis, we also have the problem of how to carry out statistical research. In some Member States, there is a huge gap between the date on which data is collected and the date on which the final results are published. And this does not just apply to the Member States, it also applies to some of the statistics published by the European Union itself. So improving statistics, which are a very important tool for improving policies, is our number one priority. You will see that this year's suggestions to several Member States refer specifically to the need to improve statistics systems.
The second basic point concerns the guidelines for 2002. I appreciate that this is a very clear strategy which calls on the Member States to set specific targets to reduce the wage differential between men and women. And, of course, our objective is to work with all the Member States and to exchange best practices so that some countries can imitate changes which are already under way.
The third point I wish to raise is that in the fifth programme, which is starting up now – the evaluation of the proposals submitted is being completed – the first priority when selecting proposals is the question of equal pay. We have divided the priorities which need to be set by the programme into five individual areas so that we can study the question of equal pay and move on to the question highlighted by several lady Members, that is, the need for an integrated strategy. A few days ago, on 13 September, the Belgian Presidency and the Commission held a major conference on the question of equal pay.
Mr President, honourable Members, may I say that our final decision on revising the existing directive will take account of the results of all these actions and the policy evaluation which I mentioned."@en1
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