Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-08-Speech-1-073"
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"en.20040308.7.1-073"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, there are – as you so rightly said earlier – a number of directives already, but their implementation leaves a very great deal to be desired, and I believe that this is where we ought to try harder. We really cannot tolerate a situation in which we, in this House, work on bringing out new directives only for them to be ignored when transposed by the Member States, so that we end up wondering what we are actually doing all this work for. Where equality is concerned, it is vital that these directives be implemented.
We are all glad to be able to observe International Women’s Day today, and it is indeed a day of rejoicing. In this plenary, we have now spent two hours dealing with the topic of equality policy and that must be of use, but what will tomorrow be like? Tomorrow, Women’s Day will be yesterday, and we will go back to what we experience day by day.
Although Mrs Karamanou pointed out earlier that we are this year celebrating 20 years of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities, it must also be stressed that here, in this House too, women labour under a double burden. We are actually represented on three committees because the Committee on Women’s Rights is not considered important in this House, and it is there that we endeavour to muster all our strength, because it is there that we have to work for recognition and grapple with many difficult issues that are not always welcome in public debate.
The Bastos report on equality and the reconciliation of work and family life certainly presupposes, among other things, equal pay for equal work, which would make it easier to share out paternity and maternity leave, as one or other partner would have a free choice in choosing to spend some of his or her time with the children, while the other would remain at work. The present situation is that the decision is always taken on the basis of the financial situation, and this generally works out better for men. What this means is that one of the important principles for which we have been campaigning for a very long time, even though it has its defects, must now at last be put into practice.
If we want to achieve the Lisbon objective, this is another area where we need to devise a rigorous policy for women and families, as a developing economy needs women at work and women who are mobile; above all, it needs women who are willing to have more children if the conditions are right.
What I very much want to re-emphasise is the concept of the family. What is a family? That, too, has to be defined. What counts is not only the traditional image of the family, with father, mother, and child; rather, the term ‘family’ must include different types of living arrangement, different ways of living together, different concepts of living, and gender mainstreaming should not be confused with family mainstreaming. There is justification for both of them. Both are working on different levels towards the same end, that being that society should be served by women and men, and we should all benefit from that in the same way."@en1
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