Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-03-08-Speech-2-014"
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I should like to thank those Members who have just launched this debate on the follow-up to the Beijing Platform for Action and its review ten years on.
Let us now take a look at the critical areas of concern identified in the Beijing Platform for Action to which you referred in your question. I should like to start with employment.
The good news is that women’s employment rates have increased at a greater rate than men’s over the last ten years, but the bad news is that the difference between the two is still very high, at 17.2 %, and that the wage gap between men and women remains practically the same. This is worrying not only for women but also for the European economy as a whole. If the European Union wishes to achieve the ambitious objectives of the Lisbon strategy, it will have to meet the objective of an employment rate of 60% by 2010. In accordance with the European Employment Strategy, the Member States have put mechanisms in place for meeting this objective as part of their national action plans.
The Barcelona European Council set a target for the provision of childcare services, the purpose of which was to make it easier for women to enter or return to the paid labour market. It is also part of the strategy to reconcile work and family life. Considerable progress has already been made in this respect in many Member States, even though the traditional division of childcare and paid work between women and men persists, and this in spite of the efforts made by certain Member States to implement policies seeking to encourage fathers to take parental leave.
This year’s draft Joint Employment Report, which will be sent to the Spring European Council, also clearly shows that more concerted action is needed to increase women’s participation in the labour market, and in particular to address the pay gaps between women and men.
With a view to responding to these concerns, the ministers responsible for gender equality policy in the 25 Member States undertook, in a declaration adopted on 4 February 2005, to develop strategies to increase the number of women in employment and in quality jobs, to guarantee and protect the rights of women workers and to remove structural, legal and psychological barriers to gender equality at work. The aim is also to promote policies enabling women and men to strike a balance between their professional and private lives, including their family responsibilities.
The joint indicators identified by the European Union for the area, ‘Women and the economy’, that is the sixth critical area of concern in the Beijing Platform for Action, will make it possible to monitor progress. The structural indicators developed as part of the European Employment Strategy will also be extremely useful in this process.
Violence against women: despite the considerable progress made in this area since the initial Daphne programme was launched in 1997, unfortunately further measures urgently need to be taken to prevent violence towards women and children and to combat this phenomenon. We hope that the present Daphne programme, which will be in force until the end of 2008, will remain an essential programming instrument to combat violence. The projects carried out under this programme over the years have made it possible to create many effective networks and to develop good methodologies.
A number of presidencies have tackled this problem, the most recent initiative being the adoption of indicators drafted by the Dutch Presidency on sexual harassment in the workplace. In the aforementioned declaration, the ministers of the European Union responsible for gender equality policy agreed to develop preventative methods to combat gender-based violence and trafficking in human beings and to monitor their implementation. They also decided to intensify actions to prevent and combat all forms of trafficking in women and girls through a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary and coordinated anti-trafficking strategy. This strategy will include measures to address all of the factors that encourage trafficking, by strengthening existing legislation with a view to providing better protection of the rights of women and girls and to prosecuting and punishing the perpetrators through both criminal and civil measures.
As regards your request to make 2006 the European Year against Violence towards Women, I cannot deny that such an initiative could help to raise public awareness of this issue, but, according to my information, the Commission intends to declare 2006 the ‘European Year of Mobility for Workers’. It has also announced that, as part of its drive to promote diversity and non-discrimination, 2007 will be the ‘European Year of Equal Opportunities’ and it would seem that 2010 is to be declared the ‘European Year of the Fight against Exclusion and Poverty’.
You will perhaps be interested to know that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has recommended to the Committee of Ministers that 2006 be declared the ‘European Year against Domestic Violence’ as part of a pan-European campaign run in cooperation with the European Commission and the European Parliament, as well as with national associations and NGOs.
As you know, this issue is currently under consideration at the 49th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The Presidency has already delivered a message, a robust one I hope, giving an indication of the Union’s commitment to seeing the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action implemented properly and in full. However, since the session is still in progress, I am not yet able to report on its results.
Women and poverty: in the ministerial declaration of 4 February, the Member States also agreed to strengthen efforts to combat social exclusion and to remove obstacles to women’s participation in the labour market, on the basis that a good job is one of the best ways of escaping poverty. Although there are not yet any gender-specific indicators at European Union level for the feminisation of poverty, certain structural indicators, broken down by gender and produced as part of the processes of inclusion and social cohesion, are presented each year to the Spring European Council. It is nevertheless true that a great deal remains to be done and that most of the Member States’ national action plans hardly mention questions of gender equality outside the world of work. The issue of gender-specific indicators could be addressed in the future.
Women and the environment: as regards the measures currently being taken by the European Union to take account of gender in its development cooperation policy, I should like to remind you that last April the European Parliament and the Council adopted a regulation on promoting gender equality in the Community’s policies, strategies and interventions in development cooperation. A financial framework of EUR 9 million has been agreed for the period 2004 to 2006 for the purpose of implementing this regulation. This follows the 1998 regulation, which recognised that actions in support of development have rarely taken proper account of the differences between the situations, roles, opportunities and priorities of men and women, and that correcting the inequalities between men and women and strengthening the role of women are vital to achieving social justice and ensuring that our development work is effective.
May I also stress that the regulation was adopted in the context of the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations, the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, as well as the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome document of the special session of the General Assembly entitled, ‘Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century’.
During the 49th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, the Presidency stated, on behalf of the European Union, that it recognised that gender equality and women’s empowerment were essential for sustainable development and poverty eradication.
Girls: I have already addressed the issue of trafficking, but I should like to add that, in a recent declaration, the European Union ministers responsible for gender equality policy agreed to mainstream a gender perspective into national immigration and asylum policies, regulations and practices, as appropriate in order to promote and protect the rights of all women and girls, including by considering steps to recognise gender-related persecution and violence when assessing grounds for granting refugee status and asylum.
I should also like to stress that in April 2004 the Council adopted a directive seeking to have residence permits issued to third-country nationals who are victims of trafficking in human beings.
Women’s rights are human rights: before the Commission on the Status of Women, the Presidency reaffirmed, on behalf of the Member States, its view that full respect for all human rights and fundamental freedoms is essential to empowering women and girls and to establishing a genuine democracy. This point of view should continue to prevail when the Council negotiates the forthcoming Commission proposal to establish an Agency on Fundamental Rights. I should also add that the European Union’s statement in New York also mentioned the need to eradicate harmful customary or traditional practices, including female genital mutilation, early and forced marriage and crimes committed in the name of honour, which are obstacles to the full enjoyment by women and girls of their human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Women and armed conflicts: the Council has taken note of the European Parliament’s resolution recommending that women should constitute at least 40% of the staff of reconciliation, peace-keeping and conflict-prevention operations. Discussions have indeed been held in the European Union on the importance of having women in peace-keeping forces, and on the need to provide all of those involved with training on the particular problems faced by civilian women in conflict zones. Nevertheless, in the absence of approved indicators and relevant statistical data on women and armed conflicts, I am unfortunately not able to say whether the 40% quota has been respected or not.
In their declaration of 4 February, the European Union ministers agreed to implement and encourage initiatives, policies and programmes following the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 concerning women, peace and security, which does not set quotas as such, but does recommend greater female participation. They also decided to act in accordance with the Council of Europe Declaration, Programme of Action and Resolution on democratisation, conflict prevention and peace-building.
During the first week of the work of the Commission on the Status of Women, the European Union outlined its commitment to promoting the role of women in conflict prevention and resolution, peace-building and democratic processes after conflicts, as well as after natural disasters and during reconstruction. The European Union also stressed that it is important to ensure that the needs of women in post-disaster relief and reconstruction situations are properly understood and are addressed in programmes, and that it is also important to ensure that women have equal access to information on disaster reduction by means of formal and non-formal education, including through gender-sensitive early-warning systems.
Today, the European Union considers equality between women and men to be a fundamental principle and the rights of women and girls to be an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights. The ‘Beijing + 10’ review comes at an important time, because it will not only enable the Union to strengthen its programme and its commitment to achieving the objectives of the Beijing Platform for Action, but will also provide an opportunity to identify the areas where progress has been made and those where concerted action needs to be further stepped up.
I should now like to conclude by thanking you for allowing me, on this International Women’s Day, to give voice to the European Union’s determination to achieve gender equality and its commitment to meeting the objectives set out in the Beijing Platform for Action and the follow-up documents from the 55th Session of the General Assembly in 2000, which have lost none of their relevance today. I am convinced that the European Parliament and the Commission will continue to work towards these same objectives and that by also involving civil society and the NGOs as far as possible, we will be able to take other measures to promote equality.
Finally, I could not finish without telling you how pleased I am to see that today the Commission is going to table its proposal on the European Institute for Gender Equality, as it was invited to do by the European Council in June 2004. Such an institute will provide the means and the robust structure necessary to find a response at European level to issues such as the pay gap between men and women, increased access for women to the labour market, their participation in decision-making and the balance between work and family life.
The report published recently as part of ‘Beijing + 10’ on the progress made within the European Union, which was drafted by the Luxembourg Presidency, sets out clearly the major results achieved by the European Union institutions, as well as the progress made in terms of institutional mechanisms in the Member States.
Nevertheless, in its report, the Presidency also lists the challenges that remain to be addressed, and Mrs Gröner has just cited several relating to the 12 critical areas of concern identified at the Fourth World Conference on Women, which was held in Beijing in 1995. As Members have said, it is important to endeavour to ascertain why obstacles still stand in the way of achieving equality between women and men and to find out how they can be overcome.
Allow me also to refer you to the Commission’s Annual Report on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men in the European Union, which was adopted on 14 February.
Before addressing more directly the issues raised by Members, I should like briefly to set out some of the positive initiatives taken at European Union level to promote gender equality. Our work to promote gender equality has been marked by three significant milestones in the last ten years: firstly, the adoption of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which created new competences relating to the principle of gender equality; secondly, the setting up of a European Employment Strategy, which has made equal opportunities an essential priority; and finally, the mainstreaming of gender-equality issues into different policy areas, in particular the process of social inclusion and the Structural Funds, by means of mechanisms such as annual work programmes or national action plans including targeted actions to promote gender equality.
The European Union’s legislative framework on equal treatment has expanded unremittingly over the years. The latest development was the adoption, in December of last year, of a Council directive extending the principle of equal treatment beyond the field of employment and professional training for the first time and applying it to public goods and services.
Nevertheless, despite the progress made on establishing equality between women and men, there is a discrepancy between equality in law and equality in real life, and there are significant disparities between women and men in many sectors, as the Presidency’s report also shows."@en1
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