Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-03-12-Speech-1-098-000"
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"en.20120312.17.1-098-000"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I thank the two rapporteurs. These two reports from the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality arrive in the aftermath of International Women’s Day, and while they bear witness to the incessant pressure that Parliament has brought to bear in order to promote equal opportunities, on the other hand, they also emphasise Parliament’s ineffectiveness in this legislature in which it has voted on some 10 reports on this issue, almost one every two and a half years. And the result?
The data provided by the report: increasing poverty of women, increasing cases of violence, of discrimination, the gender pay gap, and less welfare. What solution is proposed? The two reports are connected in the sense that when we read them together, we get a first answer to the problem: very few women in decision-making positions, very few truly positive actions to promote equal opportunities.
I totally agree on the need expressed by several colleagues that we must refer to merit, but do we really think that the current make-up of decision-making positions, so unequal in terms of gender, is qualitatively as good as it could be? I do not think quotas are the best possible solution, but for now they are the only one available and anyone who contests this solution also has to come up with alternative proposals.
So I support the Pietikäinen report. On the other hand, regarding the in ’t Veld report, I would like to highlight some problems: it again raises the issue of the definition of family, recognition of civil unions
couples, sexual and reproductive rights, and appeals for support from the Charter of Fundamental Rights. This Charter, in fact, simply sets out the principle of subsidiarity and recognises rights that the Constitutions of individual Member States and the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and of the European Court of Human Rights already recognise.
Having guaranteed the right of each individual to life, in Article 9 the Charter recognises that the right to marry and start a family must be governed by national laws. It then addresses discrimination in a later chapter, covering equality.
If she had really wanted to support equal opportunities, the rapporteur perhaps should have mentioned Article 33, if she was looking for support in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as this article ensures that the family can enjoy legal, economic and social protection, and to that end also provides protection systems for reconciling family and professional life. I am thinking, for example, of the recent case of the state-owned public broadcasting service, RAI, in Italy, which shows how important it is to work on this issue and not on the other.
For these reasons, I consider it necessary that those parts that mar the in ’t Veld report should be removed from the text in order to strengthen the rightly binding part. In each Member State, the debate on the recognition of civil unions is open, and this continual interference by the European Parliament does nothing but produce defensive reactions and slow down the work that is being done at a national level.
I think that all of us here should make an effort to do those things that are in our remit better and try to produce some additional results so that gender equality may be truly recognised and thus ensure that a truly more democratic society may be built. Thank you."@en1
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