Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-23-Speech-2-247"
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"en.20011023.11.2-247"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, equal treatment for men and women as regards access to employment, vocational training and promotion is a stated objective that we all share. The only disagreement is about how we should achieve this, and there is ultimately the question of how effective individual measures are, or whether such measures just mean more rules and regulations, and extra expenditure and bureaucracy, which we certainly do not need.
The Council has not taken all Parliament's demands on board in its common position. Nevertheless, it is true to say that the text of the original proposal has been considerably improved upon. This means that we have taken an important step on the road to updating the Community legislative framework.
However, a number of issues and problem areas remain to be resolved. The Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities has closely examined all these unresolved questions, and a decision has been reached between the groups not to re-examine all the outstanding demands, but rather the most important. The rapporteur, Mrs Hautala, has made enormous efforts in order to work out viable compromises. We have the result before us. It emerged from the first reading debate that paternity rights cannot be the same as maternity rights. The compromise accordingly does not affect Member States' freedom to recognise the right to paternity leave within their borders. Both mothers and fathers should have the option of devoting themselves to family duties. This – in contrast to the opinion that we have heard expressed here – is undeniably the stated objective of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats.
Furthermore, the formula whereby a woman on maternity leave should be entitled, after the end of her period of maternity leave, to return to her job or to an equivalent post must be taken on board. However, we have problems with the definition of sexual harassment. We seem to have ended up with a rather woolly form of words here that is not helpful for any judge or other person that has to make a decision on this.
Lastly, I would like to make one further brief comment opposing the annual reporting arrangements for employers on progress with equal treatment. Bureaucracy alone will not promote equal treatment. We also need to think about small and medium-sized enterprises so that they too accept women looking for jobs."@en1
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