Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-02-24-Speech-3-229"
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"Mr President, the equality directives started in the 1970s and since then, many directives have not only changed laws in the Member States – there were no laws in the Member States at that time – but have created the laws in the Member States, the laws of equality between men and women at all levels of our society. Nevertheless, and you are right in this, we have good laws but practice does not follow. I believe that the first thing we will have to do is not to create new laws, but see that the laws are de facto applied in society.
I dream of a time when we can have a debate in this House and 50% of the speakers are men and 50% are women. I have a dream where we no longer need International Women’s Day because there is no longer any problem. It is nice to dream, practice is there, and we have to take things in hand. That is why I am very grateful to the Spanish Presidency which has put the woman question at the top of the priority list.
I am very dedicated, together with my colleagues in the Commission, to have gender mainstreaming included in all the policies which we are going to present. Together with my colleague Mr Andor, who is responsible for employment, we will see that this is put into practice in the 2020 programme.
For the other elements I will, as I have already said, work together with the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality on the new strategy for equality where questions such as the gender pay gap and women in decision making will be high on the agenda because they are real structural problems which we need to solve. But there are also questions of society which go very deep and which we have to tackle with the help of women’s organisations, with the help of the Ministers in the Member States, with the help of national laws, with the help of European laws, and there is, of course, the terrible question of violence against women. I believe that this is going to be at the forefront of the work which we are going to lead.
I think nevertheless, ladies, that when your strong delegation goes to New York to celebrate 15 years of the Beijing Platform, we should be proud, because if we look at what we have achieved in the last 15 years, it is a great deal. All right, we have not yet arrived at where our dreams will lead us, but we have achieved much and, through this experience, we can very much help women on other continents. That will be the subject of the New York meeting. It will not only look at what European women are doing, but also at what European women, European policies, the development policies can do for women in other continents.
I also believe in this sense that the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is a beautiful text which should be read by every child in the European schools and which should be worked on by every student in our universities, really makes the right point: there is no difference between men and women. They are equal and it is our responsibility to see that we speak up when this fundamental question is not put into practice in our application of laws in the Member States. It is not only in this place where we should speak up; we should speak up in our Member States, too, and point to the problems which are arising and which are not solved, and not keep quiet until we have solved the problem.
I make a call to all the men in this Parliament. Please join your voices to the voices of the women."@en1
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