Karamanou (PSE). – (EL) Madam President, I too should like to start by congratulating our rapporteur, Mrs Ghilardotti, on her enormous contribution to the promotion and highlighting of the relatively new concept of gender budgeting.
The promotion of the idea of gender budgeting is obviously not calling for the creation of separate funding headings, nor does it aspire to more financial resources for women. What we want is for the specific consequences on the economic and social life of both sexes to be evaluated and, of course, for the budgets to be restructured so that, through them, gender equality can be promoted instead of being undermined.
Today, it is becoming more and more understood that macroeconomic policy can reduce or widen the gap between the two sexes in relation to financial resources, economic independence, education and health care. For example, the health budget should take account of the specific needs which arise from the different physiology of the two sexes and the different health problems faced by the two sexes. In other words, the male cannot be used as the measure for everything. I regret that the European Commission does not have at its disposal either methods or reliable statistics for analysing the budget by gender.
I should also like to stress that all the committees of the European Parliament should apply gender budgeting in all their budgets. Finally, it is also important for there to be transparency and control mechanisms.