Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-11-17-Speech-1-119"
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"en.20081117.22.1-119"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that women are still paid less than men for the same work is a sad chapter in our European community.
Really, it is quite incomprehensible, because in law the situation is absolutely clear. Since the Community was established in 1957 – as has already been said several times – the principle has been enshrined in the Treaties of Rome as a directly applicable right. In other words, any woman could go directly to the European Court of Justice to enforce this right: the EU provides no stronger legal protection. Nevertheless, we have missed the target on this principle by an average of 20%. It is therefore absolutely vital – as the Commission is proposing here – to enforce this principle by means of secondary legislation.
That being said, this situation once again shows us that there is a difference between the law and real life. People who depend on their job and their salary – many of whom are women – often simply do not dare to demand their basic rights, for fear of being thrown out. We therefore cannot simply once again call for company responsibility, based on the fact that decency dictates that women should not be treated worse than men in terms of pay. However, he that will not hear must feel. I am therefore in favour of severe and consistent sanctions for those who break the law. It is up to the Member States, in particular, finally to take this seriously and to expose those companies that contravene this principle and to punish them, for example using procurement law.
I have one small criticism for the Commission: it is possible that the process has been rather too lax in this case, and that you paid too much attention to business. I congratulate Mrs Bauer on her report."@en1
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