Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-07-06-Speech-4-086"
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"en.20000706.5.4-086"2
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"Mr President, I want to congratulate Mrs Damião, who has set out excellent requirements in her report. The Commission, though, has side-stepped some key issues in its evaluation report, which it submitted almost four years late. After 1992, the Member States allowed important years to pass when they could have introduced improvements for millions of mothers and prepared themselves for the changed framework conditions in the information age. There are too many loopholes in the directive, the question of the reversal of the burden of proof is not settled, nor is the question of financial contributions, which clearly reflects a need for substantial improvement. Employers regard their contributions as cost factors they will do their best to avoid. But for many women, that obviously means they have to make a decision: job or child. However, their desire for economic independence must not force them to decide between the alternatives of either a career or a child. The right to choose is a human right, applying to both women and men, and the possibility of reconciling family life and a job is a key social democratic demand.
Pregnancy is not an illness and we must change the situation where pregnant women and new mothers have to give up their income during the period of legal protection and where for women collectively the potential ability to bear a child leads to discrimination on the labour market. Here we need to change Community law. The Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities will spearhead the EU in the fight to increase maternity leave to 20 weeks and drastically reduce the number of derogations, such as in the hotel and restaurant trade.
Special assistance needs to be provided for high-risk pregnancies and multiple births and 21st century society needs to take the health of mothers-to-be seriously. I hope those colleagues who are chatting so animatedly among themselves also take it seriously. We must speak with one voice in order to implement ILO Convention No 103, and for small and medium-sized undertakings we must regulate the assistance elsewhere, for instance in the Treaty and not in this directive."@en1
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