Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-12-Speech-3-275"
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"en.20030312.8.3-275"2
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"Mr President, I really want to thank Mrs Avilés Perea for this initiative concerning the use of the Structural Funds. When I was reflecting upon what I should say in these two consecutive debates, it occurred to me how concentrating upon women’s issues induces a degree of political weariness. There is no lack of men who maintain that progress is being made but, rather than agree with their view, I just get weary sometimes.
In the fifth century, what was then an elitist male Church in Europe decreed at one of its Councils that women had souls. In 1993, the UN conference in Vienna decided that women’s rights are also human rights. In other words, there are more than 1 500 years between these two decisions.
Women I meet throughout the Member States are also extremely weary. They are weary of participating in projects that do not lead anywhere. I usually urge them to find out what the situation is in terms of options offered by, specifically, the Structural Funds. In her report, Mrs Avilés Perea indicates the difficulties arising from the individual nations’ unwillingness to see an equality dimension in the Structural Funds.
In the Swedish Parliament, my party has, for quite a few years, called upon the Swedish Government to provide us with assessments, especially in a gender perspective. Our calls have fallen upon deaf ears. I genuinely hope, therefore, that the Commission and Parliament – and the Swedish Liberals where Sweden is concerned – can cooperate in bringing this about.
How, then, is a change in traditional male thinking to be effected in board rooms, for example? Boards often talk about competence, but no one has ever really succeeded in defining what is meant by competence and what type of competence is genuinely needed in a modern society. On this issue, I really do support the Swedish Minister for Equality who, with her recent pledge to use legislation to introduce quotas if we cannot get more women onto company boards, has hopefully also promised a new approach.
I said in the previous debate that we needed gender-based structural transformation. That is what I am backing. It is so rare for us to have debates on equality here in plenary. In this context, I cannot forbear to mention the Convention – one that now wishes to introduce a Christian basis, but no equality between the sexes. That is why I was thinking of the fifth century."@en1
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