Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-12-12-Speech-1-168"
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"en.20051212.19.1-168"2
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".
Mr President, I too would like to commend the rapporteur for her work in this very important area and to lend my voice to support the call for designation of 2007 as the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All.
We must commit ourselves not just to the concept of equality of opportunity, but equally and crucially to the attainment of equality of outcome. All people should be entitled to their full social, economic and cultural equality. This, of course, encompasses the equality of all people, irrespective of gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, age, marital or family status, sexual orientation, disability, socio-economic status or indeed political or religious affiliations. If we are serious about the attainment of equality, we must, on an ongoing basis, not only guarantee equality of opportunity across those categories, but we must be in a position to measure accurately and adequately outcomes as against each of those categories.
We all know that societal inequality is not a natural phenomenon; it is the direct result of power inequalities, and so to address inequality itself, we have to address issues of power in our society, we have to challenge the way things are. I think 2007 as the Year of Equal Opportunities for All can become a platform for just that. I also think that the very fact that this initiative is being suggested is an explicit recognition that we have failed so far in our journey towards equality.
In my own country of Ireland, we are still coming to terms with the legacy of British rule and the continuing partition of our country, along with decades of discrimination in the electoral process, in housing, employment and policing. Celtic Tiger Ireland should be a success story for all the Irish people, and yet we remain one of the most unequal societies not just in the EU but in fact globally.
The Roure report’s focus on both migrants and women is commendable and particularly relevant again to my home country. The European Year must be about much more than raising awareness simply about discrimination. Equality legislation alone will not succeed in tackling the deep-rooted inequalities that exist without the political will of politicians, of policymakers and others to grasp the nettle and comprehensively tackle discrimination.
To that end, may I finish by echoing Mrs Roure’s call for both the Commission and the Council to put their money where their mouth is as regards tackling inequality across the Union."@en1
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