Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-07-04-Speech-4-015"
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".
Mr President, may I congratulate and thank Mrs Figueiredo and, of course, the Committee on Women's Rights as a whole for their most welcome support, their proposals and, of course, their criticism.
I should like to comment on some of the issues discussed which are especially important but on which no headway has been made. Several lady members referred to the question of infrastructures and childcare and care for all those who, in many cases, are dependent on their family. Of course this is an issue for the Member States alone but there is always room, not for intervention, but for help from the Commission and cooperation at European level in order to achieve added value. So may I remind you of what has been done so far: first, the strategy on employment contains one of the four approaches to gender equality. It focuses mainly on the question of infrastructures and provides important funding for several Member States. Last year, following our evaluation of the implementation of the strategy on employment, 8 of the 15 Member States were specifically advised that they needed to improve their childcare facilities. Although there are a few exceptions, most Member States refuse to set quantitative targets which would be easy to monitor. Nonetheless, we have seen a net improvement year on year under the strategy on employment. The second issue is statistical monitoring; again this has not exactly been a success at European level. We are now working closely with Eurostat so that, with the new manpower research, childcare will also be included in the statistics. The definition has been discussed at length, the situation is not the same in all the Member States, but I feel that it is very important for these data to be included in the official statistics, together with the question of gender-related pay differentials.
A second issue raised by a number of honourable Members is the Institute. I have been asked if I agree with it. We have, I think, discussed this issue in committee on numerous occasions. Of course I think we need this Institute. As you know, we commissioned a study and have already received the results; we have scientific confirmation of the need for this Institute and an initial estimate of its budgetary requirements and financial conditions and I have already been in correspondence with the President. I would remind you, if I may, of the overall difficulties inherent in setting up a new institution. I put this question to the last Council of Employment Ministers and I must say that several countries reacted positively and supported the need to set up this Institute. The rest expressed no opinion whatsoever. No Member State has yet spoken out against the Institute. I should like to reassure you that I for one shall be taking decisive action to bring about a final decision.
A third issue raised was the application of legislation in the Member States. Here, as with other issues, such as the job market and the entire legal framework on working conditions, the Commission has objective difficulties in monitoring the application of legislation. It does not have the mechanisms it needs in order to monitor what is happening on the ground in the Member States. So it works at two levels. At one level, which I would call the relatively easy level, it checks that the Member States have adopted the legislative framework needed and have done so properly while, at the second level, the Commission takes immediate action, using every means of recourse to the Court available, if it receives reports that the law is not being applied.
My final comment refers to planning for 2002 in general. I think we have made significant progress, especially on how we operate. This year, all the planning dossiers will take account of gender equality ex ante, at the programming stage, not ex post, during evaluation. Secondly, we are still collecting gender-based data at all levels, which is helping enormously in developing indicators and, thirdly, one of the priorities which we set in motion this year is special staff training on gender equality in all the Directorates-General, especially for anyone involved in planning and programming.
During the last two years' working together, we have made significant progress in the legislative sector, our crowning achievement being the recent agreement on legislation on gender equality. This establishes a very important basis and will be a huge help with the new proposal on gender equality in all sectors based on Article 13.
I have one political comment. I think this is a very important and very hard-hitting directive, which is why we are making every effort to ensure the text is as well processed and substantiated as possible, so that it will help the debate move in the right direction right from the start."@en1
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