Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-03-12-Speech-1-072-000"
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"en.20120312.17.1-072-000"2
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"Madam President, figures show that the pay gap between men and women is still large. After all these years of EU gender equality regulations, targets, and initiatives, the situation is still pretty poor.
And now you want to introduce quotas for women in boardrooms. To be perfectly honest, when I read it, I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. Because, if a women is dedicated and good she can get to the top. Did Margaret Thatcher need quotas to become the British Prime Minister? No, she did not. She did it based on raw ability, an iron will and because she was the best person for the job.
When you bring in quotas you lessen quality. You promote mediocrity and I contend that businesses should have the right to hire the best person for the job and it should not matter whether they are male, female, black or white or anything else. It is called a meritocracy and it is something which Britain and the English-speaking peoples of the world have been pioneering for centuries.
How would you feel, if you were a women who had worked very hard and had gone into management, only for a token woman to be handed a similar job? If anything, this will create a culture of discrimination. As colleagues will constantly ask, did you get there because you are good or did you get there because you ticked a few boxes?
You call this positive discrimination. I contend that discrimination is never positive. So here we have it. In a desperate bid to sound popular you are not only patronising women, you are promoting mediocrity and you are hampering business. I would urge all Members to vote against this report tomorrow."@en1
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