Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-19-Speech-2-070"
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"en.20070619.6.2-070"2
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"Mr President, it is my belief that most women in Europe who choose to have a family do not do this under duress. It is a choice they make generally in conjunction with their partner and invariably they understand and have discussed the social, educational and financial consequences of having a child. But they choose to have a child because it is a truly wonderful thing to do.
Many Member States, including mine, endeavour through many means to give women the choice, having had their family, to go back into education or into the workplace. From this perspective this report, or at least its title, is worthy of political discussion. The report correctly points out in recital A that education and the family fall within national competence and responsibility. And thank heavens it does, because reading this report you can see why the European public struggle to take this Parliament seriously and why, thankfully, Member States will not budge on giving this competence to Europe.
I shall cite two paragraphs. Paragraph 30 recommends that Member States ‘facilitate the granting of extension of social benefits to students from other Member States who have dependent children’. In my country, as you know, the debate on immigration is very hot and this would simply be unacceptable to even my socialist opponents from my country. Paragraph 10 calls on the Member States to ‘reduce or put an end to taxation of young men and women who both study and who have family responsibilities or responsibilities towards dependants’. That is everyone! Every single person – so no-one pays tax and government completely stops.
We can learn a lot about how to improve the lives of women who wish to combine family life with a period of study by looking across the different best practices that exist across Europe, especially in the northern Member States. I would suggest, however, that the Committee on Women’s Rights in this House has proven itself to be almost uniquely the worst place for this discussion to take place."@en1
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