Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-12-14-Speech-2-599"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20101214.39.2-599"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"I fully agree with the analysis that many Member States are missing the Barcelona targets. Only eight Member States meet the Barcelona targets for children aged 0 to 3 years and only seven Member States meet the targets for children between 3 years old and the mandatory school age.
As Commissioner responsible for equality, I am not responsible for social affairs and I know that all these questions are on the agenda for the Europe 2020 strategy. We will certainly have to look at all these questions because the problems are going to become worse with the ageing population. Who is going to care for the elderly, too? Women are going to have not only the babies to look after, but also the elderly. So we really have to have a look at that and also analyse why the Member States are not taking up the money which is available in order to have more childcare facilities.
Concerning quotas, in my answer I did not, I think, use the word quotas, but I have said very clearly that if there is no progress, then I will do something and I have said clearly what I mean by progress. Progress means having on the boards of publicly listed companies 30% women by 2015 and 40% by 2020. I hope that we can reach those targets without the need for strong intervention at European level. If not, well, quotas are on the agenda and, while there are those who may not believe that I will do what I say, I am known for normally doing things which I have announced. That is also why businesses now have a big chance to make it unnecessary for me to intervene, because if they do things right, we do not need to intervene.
I completely agree with the figures which have been quoted. We women make up 60% of new university graduates; that means we should also somehow hold 60% of the management positions, but we are far from reaching that level. That is the reason why we need to help women to get into management positions. There are many reasons why they do not make it: one is culture and that is the most difficult to change. That is also the reason why women in decision making is one of the priorities of the Gender Equality strategy, just as is the gender pay gap – 17% on average at the European level, some countries being very high, some being very low.
Next year, we are going to start a campaign to raise awareness of these facts. For instance, there is a very nice project in Germany which we could generalise to other countries where, in public spaces, there is a meter measuring how much longer a woman has to work in order to reach the same medium salary as a man. Of course, we also have to get the social partners into this discussion and we have to have transparency measures implemented.
All this is on the agenda of the strategy for women and we are going to put that in place step by step – not in order to just speak about it, but to change things."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples