Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-02-24-Speech-3-203"
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"en.20100224.19.3-203"2
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"Mrs Svensson, thank you very much for your question, because you know that one of the key, central and priority issues for the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union is gender equality. The Presidency has a series of objectives expressing this idea of equality in terms of the importance of the non-discrimination directive, and also in relation to something that you mentioned, which is combating gender violence and the importance of having an order to protect the victims of gender violence.
In this respect, I am very happy to see Commissioner Reding here, who is responsible for implementing everything relating to equality between men and women from a judicial point of view. I would also like to start by apologising that the Spanish Minister for Equality is not here, as she has just attended a vote in the Spanish Senate on the reform of the abortion law, which, incidentally, had a good outcome, as it has just been adopted this afternoon in the Spanish Parliament.
The Council of the European Union has always approved and has always been behind the Union and the United Nations in the area of gender equality. The Swedish Presidency produced the Beijing +15 report, which the Spanish Presidency is going to present to the 54th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, and it must be said that although a great deal of progress has been made in this area, there is still a lot to be done.
In this respect, the Presidency has highlighted, for example, the need to improve the data and to make better use of the indicators that we created at the Beijing Platform. As you know, there are 12 indicators produced within the European Union for monitoring, assessing and evaluating actual gender equality, although in some cases, we have still not succeeded in designing them, for example, in the areas of human rights, the media and the environment.
I would like to say that the Spanish Presidency is going to hold a technical meeting in May to discuss women, the media and stereotypes, as a subject relating to the media, which is also something that falls under the remit of Commissioner Reding.
I would like to conclude by saying that there is a very important issue at the moment, as everyone knows, which is the economic crisis. As well as the damage that is being done, it could also be an obstacle to the progress of equality between men and women. It is, however, also true that paradoxically, gender equality could help us to overcome and combat the crisis: through gender equality and equal access to jobs for men and women.
I am talking very specifically about the Europe 2020 strategy. The European Union institutions have made it clear that they want the Europe 2020 strategy to have a gender equality dimension right across the strategy, so that the issue of equality between men and women is also part of the strategy.
In its report last year, the European Parliament asked the Council and the Commission to include a chapter on integrating the gender dimension in the 2020 strategy. The Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council on 30 November last year, the informal EPSCO Council, the one that has just taken place in Barcelona, also said that the Member States and the Commission must work to ensure that, in accordance with their competence, the gender dimension can be consolidated in the 2020 strategy, and that all the relevant political fields are taken into account. I am therefore sure that this, along with the Commission’s programme of work, a major programme of work that has always been a fundamental instrument for guiding this strategy, is going to mean that this aspect is included in the document which the Commission has promised us for 3 March on the 2020 strategy (which has been mentioned by President Van Rompuy and the President of the Commission, José Manuel Barroso).
We need to keep on working, we need to keep driving gender equality policies forward. It is not only an issue of justice, but an issue of consistency with the spirit of the European Union, so that it can continue to be a reference point in the world for equality between men and women."@en1
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