Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-07-05-Speech-2-271"
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"en.20050705.29.2-271"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner Špidla, ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow’s vote on the recast directive will draw a line under the very in-depth discussions in the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, and so I am sure you will understand how much Mrs Niebler regrets her inability – due to a close family bereavement – to be present at this debate. She has asked me to make this statement on her behalf, and I ask the House’s indulgence for that.
Mrs Niebler is grateful to all of you for the good and fair cooperation in the Committee while preparing this important report. What the Commission has proposed in this instance is a rather tricky tightrope walk between a mere consolidation of current legislation and a partial improvement of the existing regulations with the intention of drafting them in more comprehensible terms, modernising and simplifying them, while also incorporating into the consolidated text the case-law of the European Court of Justice. Speaking as a former member of the Committee on Legal Affairs, I myself can do no other than endorse that objective. What Europe demands in this area needs to be expressed more transparently, more comprehensively and with greater clarity, and it is for that reason that we support this approach.
It is no secret that this proposal has arrived at a time when the process of transposing Community decisions in the Member States is the subject of decidedly vehement debate – I need mention only the over-heated debate in Germany, where the Red/Green government is, indeed, facing political defeat for going far beyond what Europe requires, but that is not the point at issue. This directive concerns itself solely with the equal rights of men and women at work, something that is at the very heart of European equality policy, and its being a matter for the European Union to deal with is not a matter of dispute.
After decades spent working towards equality, how do things stand now? Despite our efforts at equality in the world of work, we can see that there is still a gender gap, amounting to some 16% of wages. Men are twice as likely to occupy positions of leadership and three times as likely to be at the top of companies. At the highest decision-making levels of the 50 largest listed companies, the proportion of women amounts to a mere 10%.
Three subject areas gave rise to lively debate in the Committee. For a start, various members demanded that the directive should include reference to parental leave, but Mrs Niebler has taken the view that the use of this recasting to bring about such a fundamental change in European law is not opportune. The fact that rules differ so widely from one Member State to another – with parental leave varying from three months to three years – means that extending the directive to cover it would entail enormous changes and make both in-depth debate and an impact assessment necessary. It is therefore worth supporting the compromise that we have come up with, according to which the social partners, who are already doing something about this, are urged to review the existing regulations with this in mind.
The second subject of critical scrutiny in debate was what are known as the ‘unisex tariffs’. At one point, the Committee, by a very narrow majority, expressed itself in favour of the idea that the distinction drawn between men and women in occupational pension schemes should be done away with, but Mrs Niebler has warned, in no uncertain terms, against resuming this debate at this stage, for it was only a few months ago that, after protracted negotiations, a very well thought-out compromise was reached in relation to provision for old age. Mrs Niebler regards it as very important that this should be mentioned, for, if we now reopen the debate on the ‘unisex tariffs’, a highly politically controversial issue, then there is the risk of the recasting directive being lost as a result of our expecting too much of this process of consolidating legislation currently in force.
The same argument holds good in respect of the third issue, namely our call for more pressure to be exerted on the Member States and the social partners to get them to improve matters. Let us not, then, put the whole directive at risk by weighing it down with substantial demands; that the law should be clear and comprehensible is of value in itself. That is what the directive aims at, and I ask you to help enable it to bring that about."@en1
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