Activites

• 1997/10/06 Final act published in Official Journal
• 1997/09/16 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament
  • T4-0432/1997 summary

    In adopting the report by Mrs Marie-Paule KESTELIJN-SIERENS (ELDR, B) on the Commission's first Annual Report on equal opportunities, Parliament regretted the lack of evaluation and analysis. It called on the Commission to ensure that its next report included: - a greater focus on developments in the year in question, - more examples illustrating the situation in Member States, - a glossary of terminology in the field of equal opportunities, - greater analysis of the issues so that the report could form the basis of a debate on future strategy. In addition, Parliament hoped that the next report would give special attention to the consequences of enlargement with reference to the acquis communautaire in terms of equal opportunities. It hoped, in particular, that the Commission would present an annual progress report on mainstreaming (integration of equal opportunities into all policies) and that: - new Community legislation would contain a gender-impact assessment, - Member States and the Council would step up their monitoring of the application of the principle of mainstreaming, - the Commission would establish the structures and provide the funding necessary for the application of mainstreaming. As regards the Beijing Conference, Parliament regretted that the Annual Report did not give a comprehensive overview of steps taken in Member States to implement the Platform for Action established in Beijing. It consequently called for this Platform for Action to become the frame of reference for the implementation of policies promoting the role of women in the Union. It asked that, given the decline in the number of women participating in decision-making, policies should be implemented in order to correct this trend in Member States. It also called on the Commission to consider in its next report the obstacles to women's access to decision-making posts and, in particular, to give details, in its 1997 report, of the specific situation of women within Community institutions. As regards the economy, Parliament considered that men and women should be treated equally in terms of taxation and social benefits. It called on the Commission to put forward a proposal to amend Directive 86/613 on equal treatment for self-employed women and men, with a view to guaranteeing the visibility of and professional status for women who help in family businesses. It called on the Commission once more to indicate the steps which had been taken involving the principle of 'equal pay for work of equal value' in the Member States and to ensure that measures were adopted to end this split in the labour market. It was important to put an end to this situation of exclusion in which women found themselves. As regards combining work and family life, Parliament called on the Member States to find ways of introducing more flexibility into the labour market. However, this flexibility should not adversely affect women, who may continue to be available in large numbers on the labour market. Finally, as regards women's rights, Parliament was satisfied with the new Article 6a in the Treaty of Amsterdam on combating sexual, racial and ethnic discrimination and hoped that, on this basis, measures would be taken to combat racism involving female immigrants. �

• 1997/07/23 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
  • A4-0257/1997
• 1997/02/21 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
• 1997/02/12 Non-legislative basic document published
  • COM(1996)0650 summary

    OBJECTIVE: This first annual report on equal opportunities for women and men in the European Union aims to review the advances which have been achieved by the Union and its Member States with regard to equal opportunities for women and men. It is also an instrument for monitoring the equal opportunities policies provided by Community mainstreaming (application across the board of the principle of equality in all Community policies). SUBSTANCE: This report is the first to cover Community policy on equal opportunities as a whole. It is divided into two parts: - scope and challenges of the fourth Community Action Programme on equal opportunities and description of the policies and situation at national level in the various sectors, -advances of the Beijing World Conference on Women. According to the report, policy in the field of equal opportunities between the sexes is in a transitional phase of renewal. Implementation strategies have not advanced at the same pace as awareness of the need for new methods and approaches to equal opportunities. In the long term the Commission advocates that the principle of equality is taken into account in all the Community's policies and objectives, even if the results of this policy are felt only very gradually (mainstreaming). The communication makes a certain number of observations on various sectors of economic and social life: - labour market: in this sector the report notes an increased number of women in jobs despite the discrimination which persists in all areas of employment. Women tend to be grouped tightly in a narrow spectrum of professions and employment areas, in particular in the service industries. They also tend to move more easily from one category of employment to another and are clearly more affected by unemployment than men: since the 1980s the level of unemployment among women has always remained high and since 1995 the proportion of women who are long-term unemployed amounts to 50% of the female work force. Women are also most affected by atypical work, in particular in the services sector where the majority of part-time jobs are held by women. Lastly, the increase in the number of women in the work force has not reduced the inequality in pay ( on average women earn about 20% less than men for the same job); - family life and working life: responsibility for young children places a block on the achievement of the principle of equality between the sexes. While the level of mothers' participation in the labour force differs considerably from country to country it is strongly affected by the presence of children; - balanced participation in decision-making: the general trend over the last ten years has been for the number of women in decision-making posts to decrease despite an important change in their status role and contribution. The Nordic countries have shown a consistent track record in electing a larger number of women to decision-making posts while in the Union as a whole there has been an increase of 4% of women elected to the lower houses and 2.6% to the upper houses. At government level the general improvement is shown by the fact that average political participation by women has increased from 11% during the 1980s to 16% today. �

Documents

• Non-legislative basic document published: COM(1996)0650
• Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading: A4-0257/1997
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T4-0432/1997

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)