Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-05-Speech-4-026"
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"en.20001005.1.4-026"2
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".
Mr President, what we refer to here and what has been referred to for a century as the women’s problem is approached from two different angles, as the debate here in the House today has demonstrated.
The first reasons that the structure of the social and economic system is to blame for present inequalities and the policy of the European Union and of all the national governments is based on this reasoning. The second approach says that women, themselves, are to blame for the inequality which exists in society. This reasoning often leads to absurd distortions, one of which was heard here today, i.e. that the way in which women voted in Denmark was determined by some particular female chromosome and not by the social differences which they experience on a daily basis.
Honourable Members, Mrs Péry, the President-in-Office, has given us a superb analysis of the priorities of the French Presidency, which we all believe will be particularly important priorities. I should like in my brief intervention to confine myself to the report. The 97, 98 and 99 reports are not simply working papers. They are political tools. I should like to remind the House that the Commission’s legislative proposal due for debate calls for annual reports from the Member States on the subject of positive action because we really do believe that these reports are political tools for three reasons. Firstly, they give us a picture of the situation. As you will have seen, the reports contain analytical tables, data on each Member State and tables on all the individual sectors. Secondly, because they allow us to make a comparative assessment of the Member States and a comparative assessment of the overall progress of the European Union over time. Thirdly, because they form the basis for strategy, both for the European Union – even in the Charter of Fundamental Rights the fact that we had a picture of the current situation played an important role – and at national level, given that the Member States are able to use the comparative assessment to set national targets.
In my view, the reports which you have at your disposal concentrate on and highlight three issues. The first is the participation of women in decision-making. The average participation of women is 18.6% in Europe, 28.9% in regional parliaments and 30% in Parliament and there appears to be a very minor increase in the order of 0.6% from one year to the next. The second interesting comment concerns the wage differential between men and women which, at European level, is hovering at the unacceptable level of 23% to 24% and, in some regions of Europe, is as high as 40%.
The third interesting statistic concerns domestic violence, the violence which women suffer at European level. I fully accept the comments in the report and the recommendations by Members who have spoken of the need to change the nature of the report. I have taken your comments on board and I see that we need to concentrate on analysing data, especially the results of successful strategies and successful initiatives at national and European level, in order to give the report a strategic slant. However, I need your help here. My services face huge problems collecting data from national governments. There are several countries, although one could cite examples for all countries, where it is impossible for us to collect statistics, where it is impossible for us to collect their experiences and results at national level from innovative policies in time. I believe that, if you work together with your national governments, you can help the Commission to collate this data quickly, so that it in turn can present an analysis of them in the sort of report which you require.
Finally, as far as enlargement is concerned, it is of course, as Mrs Péry has said, a question of
. However, I would stress that, in working with each of the candidate countries, we have been closely monitoring the question of sexual equality, as regards both the legislative framework and the creation of institutions which can support the application of these policies. As you know, we have starting signing joint reports with each candidate country in order to monitor their adjustment to employment policy on an annual basis. They contain an entire chapter devoted to the participation of women.
I should like, once again, to thank Mrs Dybkjær for the excellent, in-depth work contained in her report, which will be most useful to us in our next report, and I should like especially to thank the French Presidency and Mrs Péry for being so pro-active on the issue of equality during their presidency."@en1
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