Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-12-Speech-3-258"
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"en.20030312.7.3-258"2
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"Mr President. I should like first of all to thank Mrs Gröner for the sterling work she has done. As one has come to expect with Mrs Gröner’s work, there was a long and thorough process leading up to this debate.
Mrs Gröner refers to Article 2 and Article 3(2) of the EC Treaty and to Article 23 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, all of which emphasise the EU’s obligation to promote equality and remove inequalities between men and women. I should also like, in this context, to refer to Article 141(4), which makes it clear that measures may be adopted providing for specific advantages in order to make it easier for the underrepresented sex to pursue a vocational activity or to prevent or compensate for disadvantages in professional careers.
I am in no doubt at all that this is particularly aimed at the Member States, but it is in actual fact a principle that ought also to apply here in the European Parliament, for equality will not be achieved until both the political will is present and the appropriate tools are in place.
We are able to observe some general warning signs right now. Once, the debate revolved around women’s freely choosing to create equal opportunities. Now, the debate has in actual fact moved on and altered its focus in many places in Europe. Now, it is increasingly the case that men and women have become equal under the law, and it must therefore be up to women themselves to discover what they want. The debate has moved back into the home. This, however, is to ignore the facts. It is still the case that women earn less, and it will therefore continue to be women who stay at home with the children, meaning that it will go on being men who take the decisions – here in the European Parliament, too.
31.5% of MEPs are women, but they are distributed over a wide area. 8.7% of Greek, and 44.3% of Swedish, parliamentarians are women. The last example shows how worthwhile it can be making active efforts to promote women’s participation and how it is possible to bring about more equal representation, either through quota arrangements on the individual lists or through the option of preferential elections.
Matters look quite different as soon as we turn to the indirect and the hierarchical systems. One such indirect system is the European Convention, only 17% of whose members are women, and an example of a hierarchical system is the administration of the European Parliament, which is also short on equality. If we, as the number one democratic institution, cannot set a better example than we are able to do at present, how are we to be able to convince people in Europe that equality is a ‘sine qua non’, or necessity, if we are to have a proper future in Europe."@en1
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