Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-06-15-Speech-2-595"
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"Mr President, I was very impressed by the work which has been done by your rapporteurs. I was also very impressed by the way the different political groups are going in the same direction, with small differences. These are not important as the road and the destination is the same and that is very important.
I also count on the Member States to support the Commission’s action in the area of gender equality, first by endorsing the new strategy, of course, after having heard what Parliament has to say about the proposals I will put on the table at the end of September, and also by renewing the EU Pact for Gender Equality.
In summary, there are three areas in which I want EU action to be very effective and very tangible, although when I speak of three areas, that does not mean that they are the only three areas, but I think we could perhaps make out of those three areas our main goals.
First, we will have to take decisive action to tackle violence against women and ensure effective protection of victims. Our common judicial area must be an area where victims feel treated with dignity, respect and a high standard of protection and support, not only in one domain but in many domains. I have made it a priority to ensure that in the first half of 2011, the Commission presents a comprehensive package in that respect. I know that the Belgian Presidency wants to take stock of what has already been done, what is in the pipeline and what needs to be done in an important conference which will take place some time in November. There will be a progression from the preparatory work done under the Spanish Presidency, the stocktaking and the preparation for complementary actions in the autumn, and then a comprehensive package at the beginning of 2011.
I would like to reconfirm what I said during my hearing and what has been clearly said also in the Commission’s Charter: the Commission will use all possible instruments, including criminal law if needed, to eradicate female genital mutilation. We believe that this is a brutal practice which can, under no circumstances and with no excuses, continue to be a reality in Europe.
I will also be preparing a legal instrument to enhance the participation of women in decision making. You are right: women are, except in university studies, severely under-represented in decision-making positions at all levels, both in public and in private companies. Europe will have to act to close that gap as much as possible.
I know that I have not spoken about all the other elements, such as the various kinds of leave we might add to maternity leave, the targets on child care facilities, the pay gap and the options we have in order to introduce more transparency on these problems. The labels, the charters, the award and so on are all going to be on the agenda; all of this will be on the table at the end of September.
Regarding those concrete actions, you should then really come in and say that this is nonsense, this is not strong enough and say what you think we need on them. We are working on this together with my collaborators. We have heard the input of all the stakeholders. We have seen the input of your reports, of your resolutions and we have got the input from the Ministers who have been meeting in a very important conference during the Spanish Presidency. Altogether, I think we will manage so that you will say, four years from now, ‘Yes, we have done it’.
Thank you also for underlining – all of those who have spoken, the rapporteurs and also the authors of the oral question – that we do not need any other papers, we need action. I agree with you because, actually, we know what we want and we know why we want it. We know that the only way for our society to advance is to have gender equality, not only in women’s affairs but horizontally.
That was exactly the reason why, for the first time in its history, the Commission started its five-year mandate with an opening statement, as it has been called, with a Charter which is a political commitment of each member of the Commission to advance equality between men and women within his or her portfolio and thus, a commitment by the Commission as a whole to have gender equality high on the agenda.
That is one thing. The second thing is: how do we get the action? How do we put the flesh on the bones of this Women’s Charter which the Commission pledged itself to in March? Here we come to the implementation. Firstly, I have asked all my fellow Commissioners to provide an input into the strategy, so it will not only be the Commissioner speaking to you now who is responsible for gender equality, but it will also be the other 26 Commissioners who will put on the table their contributions in their specific departments and responsibilities. This is very important because it has never happened before, and I believe that it is in the spirit of what all the political groups have presented here.
How did we come up with these ideas? The five priorities in the Charter have not appeared out of the blue. They reflect the result of the broad stakeholder consultation we conducted in 2009 in preparation for the new strategy. I will come back to the strategy later on.
Let me first speak about the very important reports that have been presented by the European Parliament. First, Mr Romeva i Rueda’s report. It is line with the Commission’s position on how the crisis affects women and how responses to it should take into account the impact on women. I have already drawn attention to this issue in the latest annual report on equality between women and men, underlining that this crisis affects women more than the previous recessions did because women now participate more in paid employment and are often at the weak end of the job chain. At the beginning of the crisis, we saw that male unemployment was rising very strongly, mostly because of the problems in construction and in industry. Now we see that the unemployment of men and women is rising at the same level and the risk is that due to public budget costs and – hopefully not too much, but also – cuts in spending on gender equality, this will certainly have an impact on women’s employment. So it is very important that we are aware of this and that we have to put measures forward. That is why I am firmly supporting efforts to incorporate gender equality considerations into recovery measures. I believe that the crisis is a unique opportunity to implement the policies which will make the labour market and our society more gender-equal in the future. It has been already said very clearly by the Presidency that the employment rate of 75%, which is our goal, cannot be obtained if we do not have women participating.
Turning to the gender perspectives of the Europe 2020 strategy, in the three main elements of this, nothing can be obtained without women. Women make up 60% of university graduates and we do not ‘utilise’ them in the labour market but, if we are going for the smart growth, the green economy where we need the minds and where we cannot leave those very well trained intellectual women aside, we will never reach our goals without women. That is why I believe that women need to be helped in order for the 2020 strategy to have a positive result. The targets cannot be reached if we do not significantly improve the inclusion of women in the labour market. That is why I think it is very good that the European Parliament has constantly underlined the strong gender dimension of the strategy – rightly so because we really need to ensure that women contribute to the strategy and also reap the benefits of the strategy.
Our gender equality strategy, which I will present in the autumn of this year, will contain many very concrete elements – not for the next few months but for the next years. We will have to have a real road map regarding how we want to implement the very concrete elements between 2010 and the end of our mandate – your mandate as European parliamentarians and my mandate as European Commissioner. The strategy will therefore aim to improve governance and policy dialogue and will be implemented in close cooperation with the main partners at European level. Something which was said in this Chamber, and which is absolutely right, is that we could write a gender equality strategy now, but they must be put into practice in the Member States. We see how all the instruments of the stakeholders which have been constructed over the years – since the Beijing Platform – are functioning well. In times of crisis, we have to see that they continue to function well and that nobody will try to eliminate them. I count on Parliament to help. If something like this occurred to a government, I am sure that we would at once speak up in this House.
So this cooperation on which the ideas of the future strategy have been built – as I said at the beginning, it was the stakeholders who came in on the public consultation on this – has to be brought to a fruitful dialogue and what you call for – a regular dialogue. I therefore underline the report on the new strategy drafted by Mrs Figueiredo. I think your idea, rapporteur, of an annual tripartite meeting between Parliament, Council and Commission to review what we have done in the course of the action is an excellent one. I think it will be very good to take it up because it will give everybody an incentive – the Commission, Council and also Parliament – to do more to help. Such a gender equality dialogue could be based on the annual report on gender equality drafted by the European Commission. I think that could be a very active and concrete way to proceed."@en1
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