EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Αnna KARAMANOU

Member of the European Parliament

Chairperson of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities

CONFERENCE

Mid-term review of the Social Policy Agenda :

achievements and perspectives

"Equal opportunities and non-discrimination"

20 March 2003

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At the Lisbon European Council, the European Union set a new strategic goal for the next decade : to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.

The promotion of equality between women and men, an important part of the Social Agenda as adopted in Nice, means that this aspect must be incorporated in all policies that concern the working and living conditions of all citizens.

Promoting actively an equal opportunities policy for women and men is also an indispensable condition for achieving genuine economic and social cohesion.We welcome the fact that the European Employment Strategy increased emphasis on gender equality by the inclusion of gender equality as one of the four pillars and of a number of specific Guidelines for the National Action Plans.

Achieving an increase in women's employment rate from 50.8% in 1997 to 54% in 2000 and setting the objective of an overall employment rate of 60% for women by 2010 and of 57% by 2005 reflects real progress.There has been also a positive evolution of gender mainstreaming in the Guidelines and of its implementation at Member State level.

The European Commission made an important contribution by its recommendations to the Member States aiming at the inclusion of the objective of gender equality in their National Action Plans. Furthermore, the 2000-2006 Structural regulations integrated the gender equality objective and put emphasis on the inclusion by the Member States of this objective in every programme. The gender mainstreaming strategy within the Structural Funds is concretely reflected in the projects co-funded, in particular, by the European Social Fund in the field of education and vocational training.

However, despite the progress made, socio-economic inequalities persist and women's participation in the labour market is low. The Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities of the European Parliament that I chair is specifically concerned as regards the little emphasis placed by most Member States on the incorporation of a gender perspective in their employment policies.

In the European Union the number of women in employment is still almost 19% lower than for men; the rate of female unemployment is 3% higher than the rate for men; horizontal and vertical gender segregation on the labour market persists; there is an over-representation of women in part-time, precarious and low-skilled jobs. Especially discouraging is the lack of national targets to reduce the different pay gaps, the failure to provide sufficient childcare services, the limited initiatives to reduce gender pay differentials and the lack of new actions to promote women in decision-making.Gender discrimination in the employment field continues to cause considerable concern in all countries, event those with low unemployment rates. Various categories of women, such as women with special needs or women of different nationalities are victims of double or multiple discrimination.

There are still unacceptable taxation, educational, social and cultural barriers standing in the way of women's access to work and professional development.The unequal distribution of paid employment and unpaid housework is the key factor that causes women's over-representation among people in poverty. This is the reason why our Committee welcomed the Community initiatives to combat social exclusion, underlining, in parallel, the need to include the economic self-reliance of women among its main goals, as well as the need to reform the social protection systems in order to ensure the improvement of individual security and autonomy for women.

Our Committee also welcomed the Commission intention to present a draft Directive on anti-discrimination based on sex in other than employment fields (Article 13), as, despite the Treaty's objectives, no real progress has been made to integrate the gender perspective into the concrete action measures.The social inclusion process requires the real integration of the gender perspective, i.e. the full participation of women in economic, political, public and scientific life.

Target measures should take into account the interdependence of the social, economic and cultural factors which condition women's lives and prevent their equal participation in decision-making processes.Gender equality in the Employment Strategy should be pursued through a gender mainstreaming approach across all pillars of the Guidelines and positive action measures under the fourth pillar which addresses specifically equal opportunities issues.

However, it is regrettable that the gender equality dimension is not incorporated into the first three pillars which concern key areas of policy, such as active labour market policies, entrepreneurship, lifelong learning and training, and therefore, there is a need to strengthen and clarify the wording of the Guidelines in all pillars in order to ensure a real gender mainstreaming approach. The objective of this approach is evident. The access of women to lifelong learning and in particular to new information technologies, as wall as the participation of women in all levels of education and training, give women a more varied range of employment and career choices and a higher job satisfaction.

Therefore, it is vital to reduce the gap between those who have access to continuous training and to new information technologies and those who are excluded or under-represented, in particular women. In the framework of the Social Policy Agenda, an active role should be given to all interested bodies and social organisations, in particular, to social partners and to women's organisations, at national, regional and local levels, in the drafting and management of the new policies.

Despite the encouraging initiatives taken by Member States to reconcile work and family life, we consider that progress remains limited. In this respect, the social partners have a key role to play in promoting family friendly working environments to achieve flexible working time arrangemetns and in enhancing parental leave programmes and schemes.

Furthermore, Member States should be further encouraged to increase the provision of care services for children and other dependent persons. We regret the little attention devoted by most Member States to fighting the problem of gender pay gaps and we have to recall the decision of the Stockholm Summit that the Council together with the Commission will develop indicators to ensure that there are non discriminatory pay differentials between men and women. We consider it is necessary to develop such indicators in pays and income for different age groups, for different regions and for minority ethnic groups. We also wish the introduction of precise national quantitative targets and targets dates to tackle the pay gap.

Finally, we have to highlight the important role played by the Structural Funds in reducing inequalities between women and men, particularly in terms of the objective of more and better quality jobs and in carrying out vocational retraining measures. In this respect, the role of the European Social Fund in supporting the implementation of the Employment Strategy through the mid-term review of the 2000-2006 programmes and in supporting the implementation of Social Inclusion process should be encouraged and reinforced.