Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-20-Speech-4-018"
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"en.20031120.1.4-018"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, without wishing to engage in polemics with our rapporteur, I must emphasise that European lobbies, in my view, are an excellent source of information and coordination on a number of issues that arise in the countries of the European Union. I therefore wish to pay tribute to the work of those lobbies.
Given my desire to avoid entering into an argument on this point, however, I shall begin by stressing the following point: regardless of the usefulness of the European Women’s Lobby, if some Members – and I agree with the previous speaker here – are calling for the extension of the programme for women, it is because they know from their dialogue with the relevant associations that the main problem lies in the way they work. For any association to work properly, it has to know where it is going, and it must be able to organise itself. This is why I strongly emphasise how important it is that we do not finance a particular event organised by an association or group of associations; on the contrary, we should use our funds to ensure that these associations operate in favourable conditions. Let me add that opening up to the new Member States and to third countries is also of fundamental importance in this context.
When I look back on my experience of the past four years as a member of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities, I realise that we have widened the scope of our concerns quite considerably. This is another key dimension. We have moved into new areas of activity not only through the reports we have compiled on our own initiative but also because, as the Charter of Fundamental Rights states, the issue of women’s rights is relevant to every domain of activity. I have therefore seen us deal with reports on women’s health, on women and sport, on the information society and on violence against women. All of these reports demonstrate the need for us to take an interest in the development of the funding of associations, because each of these new areas on which we are now focusing is also undergoing development.
This is why
and this is my final point, which is addressed primarily to the Commissioner, I am still absolutely astonished that the European Commission did not endorse Mrs Diamantopoulou’s proposal for a directive implementing Article 13 of the EC Treaty, as amended by the Treaty of Amsterdam. Three years ago, the Racism Directive was adopted on the basis of Article 13. The directive on discrimination against women has just been undermined at the very time when we are in the process of broadening our horizons. I do not understand how the Commission can be so reticent, particularly with regard to the media, a sector in which we certainly need the associations and their support in order to combat all forms of discrimination."@en1
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