Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-03-08-Speech-2-043-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20110308.7.2-043-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Madam President, it is nice that on the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, this House is guided by a woman. I think that is very symbolic and it is also very symbolic that we can, during this day, debate these very important issues on the agenda – thanks to the rapporteur, Mariya Nedelcheva – which shows a great support for the Commission’s work towards gender equality and focuses on important issues that the Commission has emphasised and will continue to emphasise.
One hundred years of struggle and we still do not see the end of it. I regret that because I always hope that we can eliminate, if you like, the yearly celebration of the struggle of women, but as long as we have not arrived there, we cannot do so, and we have not arrived there yet. Parliament’s report shows very clearly what the gaps are. The gaps are in poverty: we have heard the second report on this too. On poverty, women are leading so there is not a gap in this sense, but what are we doing – and my colleague, Lászlo Andor will answer this – to get women out of the poverty trap?
The second element is women in the world of employment. There are still some problems concerning the balance between family life and professional life. There is the problem of the pay gap where women still earn 17% less on average than men – and you might have seen that on 5 March, we had the European Gender Pay Gap Day, with measurements to see how much more women have to work than men in order to reach the same level of pay. The fact is that we were, in effect, not paid until 5 March; we had to work until then without being paid. Only from 5 March on did we start to be paid. I hope that one day, the gender pay gap day will be on 1 January, which would mean that there would be equal pay at that moment.
The political commitment of the European Commission is contained in our new strategy. The themes which are mentioned in our strategy for gender equality are the same as the ones the rapporteur has mentioned: economic independence for women, gender pay gap, violence against women and promoting gender equality in external actions.
To start with external actions, you might have seen Cathy Ashton and myself on 8 March speaking to women outside of Europe and saluting the courage of all those women who are fighting to survive and who are fighting for the establishment of a democracy; we need to make it clear that we are standing by their side. Speaking about all these upheavals, speaking about the wars and speaking about the genocides, which unfortunately continue to go on, you all know that women are in the front row. Women and children are the most vulnerable in our societies but also in the societies outside, and that is why the Commission is working to streamline its various policy initiatives on violence against women and to create synergies between areas with similar objectives.
So this is where we are in developing a coherent policy response to tackle this huge problem: my link is concrete actions in areas where there are clear legal bases in order to have efficiency, and in this regard, I am going to present a victims’ rights package in May this year in which legislation to help women and children will, of course, be very high on the agenda.
Maybe I should finish with a theme which has been high on the agenda in these last few days. You know that on 1 March, I brought the CEOs of large European listed companies around a table to tell them that we do not agree anymore with the 90% quota for men on boards of directors – because that is what is happening. There is only one woman for ten men on boards, which means a 90% de facto quota for men. So we think that this should be tackled, mainly because all the economic evidence and the scientific evidence on economic functioning shows very clearly that companies with an balanced decision-making structure have a higher return on investment and make more profits than companies with solely male decision-making structures.
So women mean business; it is in the interests of economic development that women take more responsibility. Here, I have challenged publicly listed companies in Europe to sign a ‘Women on the Board Pledge for Europe’ by March 2012: to pledge to replace outgoing gentlemen on the board by qualified women – and there are so many that it should not be difficult to find these women. We are going to see, to observe, to analyse and to count what is happening between today and 8 March next year, and if nothing changes, then I am prepared to take action at EU level to redress the gender balance in corporate board rooms."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples