Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-31-Speech-4-008"
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"en.20010531.1.4-008"2
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"Mr President, first of all I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Hautala, for her thorough work and for her willingness to take into account all the contributions and suggestions that all the political groups made on such a delicate matter. The last speech showed how intense the discussion within the Committee on Women’s Rights was, because it is quite true that the 1976 directive played a remarkable role, but 25 years have passed and both social behaviour and the role of women have changed. Behind us we have numerous decisions of the Court of Justice but, most importantly, we have the Treaty of Amsterdam which, from the legal standpoint, gives us the opportunity to consolidate and make more effective the legal instruments which, as we are quite aware, are instruments, but vital instruments for implementing active policies and for putting the principle of equal opportunities into practice, even as regards access to employment.
The temptation to try to use this amendment to the directive to tackle many of the problems facing women has been great – in this respect Mrs Lulling is right – but I believe that the result of our labours is, from a legal standpoint, absolutely consistent with the proposals and objectives of the draft amendment that the Commission presented to us. I believe the definitions of ‘direct discrimination’ and ‘indirect discrimination’ which we have taken from the Commission proposal and improved upon are such as to make the use of this instrument clear at a legal level. The inclusion of harassment and sexual harassment as elements of discrimination is, without a shadow of a doubt, equally clear, as is also the clarification that the right to maternity, like the right to paternity, cannot be used as an instrument for enforcing discrimination. The possibility of putting into practice positive actions like, indeed, the possibility given to us by Article 141(4) of the Treaty, is, I believe, an equally clear instrument, so that the directive – which I hope will be operational by the end of this year and will be an instrument at the service of all the Member States, all women, all organisations – may truly become one more instrument added to those that the European Union has for all these years placed at the service of so many Member States.
Somebody raised the point that the European Union might interfere more than it should do under the principle of subsidiarity. Well, in my opinion, not even this could ever be used as an excuse by anybody, because the legal instruments that can be adopted are specified here and in some cases there are obligations associated with them and in others opportunities, depending on the laws of the Member States. But I believe and hope that, today, the House will, by a large majority, approve Mrs Hautala’s proposal, which has the consensus of the overwhelming majority of the Committee on Women’s Rights, because I feel that this, too, will be a step forwards in making one of the basic principles of our Community – the principle of equal opportunities – become a reality."@en1
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