Thank you for inviting me here today and to the National Alliance of Women’s Organisations and the Wales Women’s European Network for organising the forum. It is very important to me that women get involved in the debates and decisions that affect our futures and realise the importance of their voices being heard. That's one aim of my work as an MEP.
Gender equality is, of course, an essential human right and an integral part of social, economic and democratic development. It is incredible that so many women around the world today live in fear of their lives and are denied even basic human rights. On the whole we are not in that position in European countries but I believe that claiming that there is truly gender equality within Europe would still be a vast exaggeration.
The European Union has traditionally been at the forefront of equality legislation - in particular between men and women - and that is something I am proud that the EU has done and often use it to illustrate the real effect of Europe on people's lives. Provisions on equal pay, parental leave, health and safety, non-discrimination in the workplace as well as more general employment legislation such as the minimum wage and rights for part-time workers which effect women all come from the EU. In 2003 the Directive on Equal Treatment of Men and Women was revised and updated so now there is a EU-wide definition of sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace, and discriminating on the ground of pregnancy or maternity leave is banned. Last year a new law on non-discrimination in access to goods and services was adopted. Programmes such as DAPHNE have been funded to tackle violence against women, particularly domestic violence.
The Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee in the European Parliament is also a strong voice for the role of women in development and in armed conflicts and against the violation of women’s human rights across the world. Another aspect of our work is to report back from the other Committees we sit on and ensure that gender is mainstreamed throughout the parliament and the EUs institutions.
But this all looks wonderful on paper. There's a lot of good intentions and good legislation but is it being carried through and is it making a difference to women in Wales?
In 2000 a new employment and growth strategy for Europe was launched - the Lisbon Strategy. Its aim was to make the EU "the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion and respect for the environment". And this is all due to happen by 2010! One of the 15 key targets is to achieve a 60% employment rate for women by 2010. Last year the Commission carried out an evaluation of the employment strategy so far. This showed that statistically it had had a positive affect of the employment of women – out of the increase in employment over the past four years, women took up 6 million extra jobs compared with the four million taken up by men. But the quality of those jobs can be questioned.
Last February the European Parliament called on the Commission to tackle the fact that only 23% of businesses in Europe are owned by women by preparing a detailed report so we can analyse the main problems – the issues that prevent women setting up businesses and propose possible solutions to this. In the Employment and Social Affairs Committee (which I was a member of in the last parliament) we regularly stressed the importance of creating high quality well paid jobs - or looking at quality as well as quantity in the job market.
The figures of 6 million extra jobs also does not consider the large increase in women taking up a second job or doing two or more part-time jobs to make ends meet, as we know is happening in Wales.
Thirty years since European equal pay legislation came into force in the UK, women still earn 16% less than men on average. In the UK 18% of employed men are managers but only 11% of women. 3.2% of men are managers of small businesses but only 1.9% of women. 8 out of 10 part time workers are women and women hold three quarters of low paid jobs.
The recent research by the GMB Union that showed the extent of the pay gap. Women in Wales earn on average just 78.6% of that of men. Women's full time pay in Anglesey is as low as 59% of men's! That means taking home £300 a week compared to £500 for men. The situation is poor across Wales with Wrexham, Ceredigion and Cardiff all below average and Newport, Rhondda Cynon Taf and Carmarthenshire not faring much better at around 80%. Despite the laws there is a lack of political will to tackle problems in member states.
At the end of last year a high level group chaired by the former Prime Minister of the Netherlands Wim Kok assessed the Lisbon strategy's failings and recommended a way forward for revitalising the project. In the whole report only one paragraph is about women and it refers to the ongoing pay gap, the need for childcare and the stricter enforcement of non-discrimination legislation. There are no further recommendations and it does seem to be a step backwards from the initial energy of Lisbon.
A lot of the Union's laws so far have dealt with equality in the workplace and with legal and institutional issues. I think we need to focus on equality in the economic, social and political sectors. Women suffer first when social security, education or health budgets are cut. Without such social support it is extremely difficult to combine work and family or personal life - the "work-life balance" - and therefore difficult for women to play a full part in society.
A long standing issue of concern is women in decision-making. As we all know Wales elected a National Assembly in 1999 with 41.6% women members and in 2003 we achieved gender equality in the membership - the only legislative body in the world comprised of 50% women and 50% men. This was achieved by Plaid Cymru and Labour adopting gender equality measures in selecting candidates. Although I am delighted that Wales is leading the world - and we certainly don’t shout this enough - it is very sad that it is the exception rather than the rule. In the twenty first century this should be a normal situation but on average in political institutions women hold only about a fifth of elected positions. In Italy and France women make up only 11 per cent of the parliament, and a pitiful 7 per cent in Greece.
A vivid example of how far we all have to go is the Convention on the Future of Europe that met in Brussels for a year and a half to draft the Constitution for Europe. The purpose was to have an open forum, representative of the people of Europe, that could bring about reform. This was a welcome change and certainly better than the summits that usually decide on changes. But when the Convention was actually set up, out of the 105 voting members only 17 were women. Hardly representative!
It is very difficult to influence decisions if women are left out of crucial discussions and decision-making. Structures for gender mainstreaming and ensuring compliance must be in place.
And the EU itself has a long way to go to get our own house in order before preaching to other bodies. The percentage of female MEPs remains stagnant at 30%, although there were fears at one time that the number would decrease this time due to enlargement. We campaigned for the Commission to be gender balanced, by asking member states to draw up a short list of at least one male and female to nominate and received assurances that the issue was being considered but we couldn't force them. We got a Commission with 7 women and 18 men. As they have just been appointed time will tell how proactive the Commissioner responsible for equal opportunities, Czech Vladimir Spidia, will be. An internal study recently showed that although the overall numbers of Commission and Parliament staff that were women is increasing that men still dominate the higher ranks in the 'civil service'. The glass ceiling is far from being shattered.
I do find it disappointing and frustrating when I'm in the women's committee and we're having the same debates as six years ago when I first became an MEP or even twenty years ago in campaigning groups in Wales. But it seems necessary in light of the facts.
It's been 10 years already since the UN Beijing Platform for Action was adopted. There will be a Beijing +10 conference this year to see how far we've come and where to go next. We're preparing questions in the Women's Committee to assess the EU's progress on issues like the pay gap, poverty and social protection, violence against women, on trafficking of women and children. We need to keep raising the same issues because I've certainly sensed a different attitude in the parliament of 25 states.
There used to be one woman in the Women's Committee who stood up whenever we were discussing training, lifelong learning, childcare or employment and said that women should be at home. Now though those ideas have more support. The importance of "the family". Of course supporting families to make their own choices and enabling them to choose how to combine caring for families and careers is something we all support. But what is meant by the new agenda is encouraging the traditional family unit with a husband working and a mother at home instead of whatever suits individual families. There may be a different emphasis in our policies in future.
In many ways people take gender equality for granted now but there's also a lack of a proactive force and political will to make it a priority. No one would disagree with gender equality but it might just slip under the table or slide off the agenda if something more important comes along.
Mainstreaming gender equality is very important but it needs to be hand in hand with strong women's organisations, events such as this and International Women's Day to raise the profile and networks of women lobbying inside and outside of traditional politics.
That's why events like this are so important. We've won a great deal through the EU - albeit slowly - but it doesn't happen on its own. It takes a strong and effective partnership of women's organisations to keep up the pressure and push the agenda forward. That's what we must do.
