Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-05-Speech-4-025"
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"en.20001005.1.4-025"2
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"Mr President, I will not reply individually, except to Mrs Torres Marques, because her question is really direct and personal. I was indeed sorry to see that Maria De Belém Roseira was no longer the representative. She was very active during the Portuguese Presidency, but it is not up to me to make that decision, it is up to the Minister for Employment, whom we have invited to the conference on gender equality. I will now respond generally on the issues, rather than give individual answers to any one of you.
Several of you have said gender equality policy did not start a year, two years, or three years ago. Obviously not, and as someone involved with associations for social change – because I too, like many of you, have some thirty years of involvement with these associations behind me – I know how hard the social movement, the feminist movement and the intellectual movement, naturally, have worked to move this issue forward, and today we take our places in roles of responsibility in our institutions. The history of the women’s movement goes back way over fifty years: I sometimes remember Olympe de Gouges, who dared to call for a declaration of women’s rights and gender equality, and was condemned to the scaffold in 1793. Of course the history of feminism is very long.
My second comment is about inequality in the world of work. Ladies and gentlemen, political will is clearly not enough to eliminate every possible social inequality overnight, especially in the world of work. Management, the unions and the market have a role to play, but we do what we can by expressing a political will. I can tell you in one sentence what I am doing about it: I have wasted no time proposing a law to improve equality in the world of work. This is currently being debated in Parliament, and I have introduced a provision, which obviously does not suit everyone in my country, but which is compulsory and will compel each company or profession to negotiate on equality in the workplace every three years, covering salaries, conditions of work, career prospects, and access to lifelong training.
My third comment is about your doubts: plenty of speeches, plenty of documents, plenty of reports, but not enough actual progress towards quantified targets. It is true that the reality in the European Union is that we have to take decisions as Fifteen and we differ culturally in relation to these issues. Nevertheless, I believe in the need to fight for quantified targets, and to implement policy through indicators. I did not mention this in my speech, but I am fully intending to propose a feasibility study on the gender institution to the Ministerial Conference, because we need an instrument for monitoring those indicators, and for exchanges of good practice.
Fourth point: the issues of the future. Two of you mentioned new social rights, new fiscal rights. I can tell you that will be the central theme of the Swedish Presidency, and I shall be following it with great interest, because the progress made will certainly inspire French action.
Fifth point: the Charter. It is true that while much has been done compared with the initial stage of this document, we might have hoped for something more dynamic on decision-making. I have not lost hope, however, of improving the text.
Sixth point: enlargement. In New York I took the liberty of making myself clear on that issue on behalf of my country. I shall be just as clear today, on behalf of the Presidency. The candidates really must be helped to come up to the level of the
. That seems clear. Excluding gender equality from the
is unimaginable, and of course we shall be just as vigilant on that issue as on the others.
Finally, violence, prostitution, the grip of the Mafia. If Mrs Diamantopoulou wants to take a European initiative, because we have done things before at Community level to combat violence, I shall be there to support her."@en1
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