Dear Bulgarian and EU colleagues,

It is a pleasure for me to be here in Sofia on behalf of the Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities Committee of the European Parliament in order to tell you about the work of our committee in promoting gender equality and for me to learn about the corresponding endeavours in Bulgaria.

A hundred years ago, if I had said: "I am a woman," it would have meant for example "I do not have the right to vote" and "I do not have access to the academic world." And, apart from these practical restrictions the understanding of the word "woman" would have been that of a creature who is incapable of rational thinking, who does not understand politics, and who cannot take responsibility for running its own economy.

Thanks to the political success of the women's movement, here in Europe the word "woman" no longer has these connotations.

But changing the definition of what a woman can be, do, or imagine did not and does not happen overnight, nor does this transformation appear out of thin air. It requires concentrated work.

This is why the European institutions have been working together in a concerted effort, to promote equal opportunities. In the European Parliament, the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities has adopted a work program consisting of seven goals, which we are working to achieve during the legislative period 2000-2005.

As an introduction to our discussion, I will briefly outline these seven goals, highlighting some of our progress in our work toward achieving them.

Our first goal is increasing the representation of women in decision-making. While women make up 50 per cent of the Swedish government and 44 per cent of the parliament, the proportions in other Member States are less encouraging. In Italy and France women make up only 11 per cent of the parliament, and merely 7 per cent in Greece. At local and regional level, the situation is almost as discouraging. My own country - Wales - elected a National Assembly in 1999 with 41.6% women members by adopting positive discrimination measures. In most political institutions however, women hold only about a fifth of elected positions. The low point is once again Greece with women making up less than 4 per cent of local councils.

As you are well aware, the situation is discouraging also in most applicant countries. Four applicant governments have no women at all in their governments, and many applicant states are below the current EU average of 20% women in parliament. As you all know, Bulgaria is leading the way in this respect, with the percentage of women members of parliament increasing from 10.8 to 26% at the recent parliamentary elections.

We in the European Parliament have been requesting that the Member States, the Commission, and the Council take a number of concrete steps. We have demanded that Member States provide training for executives and leaders - men as well as women - in order to promote non-discriminatory working relationships. We have called on the Commission to improve the statistical database, establishing and maintaining a full set of EU statistics on women in decision-making which would be updated regularly.

In addition - as an important part of our political decision-making strategy - our Committee advocates measures to remove the glass ceiling within the EU institutions - from the Commission and the Court of Justice to the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of Regions.

Women only make up 30 per cent of the EU parliamentarians, only five out of 20 commissioners are women, only 6.5 per cent of the European Council is female, and only 22 of the 222 members of the Committee of Regions are women.

The EU, like its Member States, is governed by male norms. But a society that is one-sided, that is characterized by the values of half the population, is a weaker and less democratic society. As long as gender based discrimination persists within its institutions the EU cannot credibly advocate measures to promote equality between women and men in the Member States.

Therefore, we sasw it as a great victory when Commissioner Kinnock in his recent reform plan for the Commission included a number of concrete measures - ranging from Affirmative Action to improved parental leave - aimed at increasing the number of women in high level positions.

Our second goal is increasing the participation of women in conflict resolution and peacemaking. At the Dayton Peace talks that ended the Bosnian conflict no Bosnian women took part in the negotiations, although the world was well aware of the systematic rape of women and girls as well as the responsibilities they would have take on to reconstruct their communities. Four years later during the Rambouillet talks, that preceded the NATO bombings of Kosovo, there was only one Kosovar woman in the delegation. In the recently created Stability Pact of the Balkans - aiming to reconstruct the war torn societies - women were initially not even mentioned.

But you cannot build a house on half a foundation. You cannot build peace if the views of 50% of the population are ignored and key ingredients necessary for building a sustainable peace are omitted or overlooked. This is particularly relevant in the current international situation. We recently met with representatives from women's organisations working in Afghanistan and Pakistan who emphasised how essential it was to include women in the building of a broadly based government in Afghanistan.

Against this background, our Committee has developed a strategy aimed at increasing the number of women taking part in all peacekeeping, peace-making, peace-building and conflict-preventing activities. We also called for gender training for all individuals participating in international peace operations.

Our third goal is to implement in practice the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. I saw a sign that said: "Prepare your daughter for working life. Give her less pocket money than your son!"

That is the provocative request in a campaign recently launched by the UK Equal Opportunities Commission. Even if the request is said with the greatest irony, it unfortunately reflects the reality of today's labour market. European women are paid on average 76 per cent of the hourly wage men receive.

The Committee on Women's Rights is currently working to expand the EU Equal Treatment Directive to request gender action plans as is currently required in Sweden. If we succeed, the Union will have an effective tool in the fight against gender-based discrimination.

Our forth goal is eliminating violence against women and children. Violence against women by male partners is the single largest injury to women - over mugging and automobile accidents combined. Between 15 and 25 per cent of women are battered during pregnancy. Only 2-3 per cent of men who rape go to prison. The Commission reports that violence against women in the candidate countries is also of great concern.

The European Parliament has repeatedly demanded strong action against this appalling violation of women's human rights. We have collaborated with the Council and the Commission in the launching of a variety of campaigns and programs. These include the European Campaign against Violence against Women, seeking to raise awareness of this problem among the public and combat the tolerance of gender-based violence, and it includes the Daphne initiative, funding information exchange between women's organizations, refugees, research on male violence and public awareness raising. We must raise awareness of men as well as women to domestic violence, with campaigns such as this Sunday's White Ribbon Day, funded by the Daphne initative to raise men's awareness of violence against women.

Our fifth goal is stopping the trafficking in women. 140 years ago slavery was abolished in the US and Russia. 140 years later we acknowledge a new form of slavery in Europe.

The victims of the new form of slavery are women and girls. Irrespective of who is enslaved, the mere existence of human trafficking is one of the most important failures of humanity.

In 1995 the International Organization for Migration estimated that roughly 500,000 women are brought into the European Union annually for lives of forced prostitution. The true figure is of course unknown, but Interpol and Europol report that this activity - that produces higher profits than drug smuggling - is sharply on the rise, and is increasingly controlled by organized crime. The Commission says that trafficking in women to and from the candidate countries is a growing phenomenon.

In all EU countries guilty verdicts for drug smuggling carry much higher sentences than for trafficking in women - 10 to 15 years for drugs, versus a miniscule 1 to 2 years for trafficking in human beings. No wonder the Mafia increasingly prefers trafficking in humans - more money, but less risks. All but two Member States deport victims of trafficking even if their lives may be at stake.

Based on a proposal from the Committee on Women's Rights, the European Parliament has requested that we raise penalties and risks for trafficking in women, that we allow victims temporary asylum, and take a wide range of preventive measures. It was, therefore, a great victory when the EU ministers of justice recently agreed that a common definition and consistent and higher penalties are a must.

Our sixth goal refers to the equal participation of women in new technologies and information. In Europe, studies show discrimination against girls and women in access to computers - in schools and in workplaces. As a direct result, women are underrepresented in IT-jobs. At EU level, only a small percentage of grants are allocated to women scientists.

To combat this situation, the European Parliament last year adopted a strategy - which the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities had helped develop - aiming at rectifying this position in the EU's policies in the field of science and technology.

A cornerstone of the strategy is to celebrate the women scientists of the past and to present girls with present day role models. We called upon the Member States and the Commission to rewrite textbooks and increase the proportion of women instructors and teachers in science and technology education. We also called for the promotion of equal access for women and girls at all stages to scientific education.

Our seventh and last goal for the legislative period is to decrease the gender gap in unemployment by 50 per cent. European women have an employment rate that is some 20 percentage points below the male rate. The situation is very similar in Central and Eastern Europe, but in Turkey and Malta the female employment rate is much below the EU-rate.

Throughout Europe, women experience poverty more often than men do and are more often financially dependent on social welfare provisions.

European women do not have equal opportunuties in employment - not the same criteria for recruitment, the same rights to promotion, the same job security, nor access to the same vocational training and retraining.

There is a wide range of actions needed to eliminate these gender gaps. I shall mention two areas for action.

First, our Committee has on several occasions pointed out that tax disincentives to women's employment must be eliminated. As long as the tax system in large parts of Europe is based on the income of the family rather than the income of the individual, it will prevent women's employment. The higher tax rate discourages many men from accepting that their wives go out to work.

Secondly, the gender gaps cannot be eliminated as long as women, by themselves, juggle the responsibilities for child rearing and housework. So, we should not just be talking about increasing women's participation in the labor market, but also about increasing men's participation in the household.

To make it possible for women to combine work and family life, men must realize that participating in family life means more than merely bringing home the pay slip.

These are the seven goals adopted by the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities.

Once upon a time it was an impossible thought that a woman should have the right to participate in society almost to the same extent as a man - but the impossible proved to be possible.

Yet, as you are well aware, to ensure that European women do not merely have equal rights with men, but also de facto equality in all areas, we still have work ahead of us. Nothing less than a revolution of consciousness is necessary. Together, we must make the notion of women as decision-makers, and men as carers … not a novelty, but something natural and ordinary.

As we incorporate new countries into the European Union, lets also incorporate a new definition of what a woman can be, do and imagine.

Lets work for a tomorrow, when the daughters of the future can say: "I am a woman" with the word "woman" having the implied meaning of a person who is resourceful, strong, determined, and independent.

Thank you

Ends.