Women and the European Union

Women's Rights Worlwide

The Benefits of European Union for Women

Sixty years ago, on 9 May 1950, Robert Schuman delivered his famous declaration calling for a united Europe based on peace and solidarity between its peoples, which led to the creation of what is now the European Union (EU). Today, equality between women and men is at the core of this Union, which is bound in all its activities to ‘eliminate inequalities, and to promote equality, between men and women’ (Art. 8 TFEU).

Legislation to protect women
The EU has adopted legislation to protect women from discrimination and promote equal opportunities and equal rights for women and men in employment and beyond.
* Ensuring equal access to jobs and trainings and protection from discrimination in employment and beyond
* Fighting the gender pay gap
* Ensuring the equal rights of part-time and self-employed women workers
* Ensuring women’s equal rights to a pension
* Guaranteeing maternity rights
* Promoting parental leave
* Ensuring paid holidays and a shorter working week
* Setting targets for the provision of childcare
*Protecting women from sexual harassment at work
* Combating trafficking in women
* Granting asylum to women who have faced gender-based persecutions
* Funding projects that fight violence against women

Politics
still a male dominated world

Most women want the next European Parliament to guarantee equal pay for equal work, promote day care facilities for children, include child-minding years as pensionable years and combat violence towards women, according to a Eurobarometer Flash survey presented in the EP on opinions and expectations of of the European elections. The poll shows significant variations among countries, but a common view is that European politics is a male-dominated world.
Additional research showed that women also give priority to consumer protection and public health measures.

Nine EU Commissoners

Catherine Ashton, UK

Viviane Reding, Luxembourg
Neelie Kroes, Netherlands
Connie Hedegaard, Denmark
Cecilia Malmström, Sweden
Maria Damanaki, Greece
Máire Geoghegan, Ireland
Androulla Vassiliou, Cypre
Kristalina Georgieva, Bulgary

The EU has installed a Commission of 27 commissioners for 5 years, one commissioner of every country, with a quorum of 30% women. Chairing the Commission is Jose Manuel Barroso.

European Council - five targets

Five headline targets have been established on March 25-26 2010:
- reduction of poverty;
- an employment rate of 75 % of the working age population;
- meeting the EU's climate and energy targets: reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, increased share of renewables in energy consumption and improved energy efficiency;
- reduction of school drop-out rates and more students in higher education;
- 3% of the EU's GDP should be invested in research and innovation.
These headline targets will be converted into national goals to be set by member states. The leaders had an exchange of views of what should be the EU's priorities for the G20 summit in Toronto in June.

From the Eurobarometer - the gender pay gap
The European Commission plans to use a series of measures aimed at significantly reducing the pay gap between men and women over the next five years. The average gender pay gap in the EU currently stands at 18%. The Commission plans to raise awareness among employers, encourage initiatives to promote gender equality and support the development of tools to measure the gender pay gap.

Women's Rights and Gender Equality

FEMM Latest news

Who is heading the EU?
Permanent President of the EU Council is Herman van Rompuy (Belgium). He is chairing all the EU-governmental leaders when they come together. Catherine Ashton (UK) is the permanent representative for foreign affairs. See picture.

Jose Manuel Barroso (Portugal) is now chairing the EU Commission with its 27 Commissioners. He is supported by lots of civil servants.
Chair of the EU Parliament with its 785 Europarlementaries (MEPs) is Jerzy Buzek (Polen).
To complicate matters, Spain (the Spanish president) is charing the EU from January 1st till June 30st 2010, being followed by Belgium till December 31st.

The EU has to speak in international matters with one strong voice, but to reach that one voice with four chairs, 27 states and 785 MEPs is not an easy matter.

EU politics - figures of the elections in June 2009
A total of 785 Europarlementaries are appointed out of 27 countries of the EU in June 2009.
The percentage of women increased from 30% to 35%, but not to the 40% a petition was aiming at (see also the graph on the Dutch pages).
The new European Commission will have at least 30% female Commissioners.

EU figures
There are 493 million EU citizens. The EU population is greater than the combined population of the United States and Brazil.
The European Parliament is the largest directly voted democratic body in the world; it has 785 members from 27 countries.
The EU’s economy is larger than the U.S's and accounts for almost a third of the entire global economy.

The Dutch EU delegation
The Dutch delegation consist of 27 MEPs (Members of the European Parliament), including 12 women. Being an MEP is a full-time job.
One week each month is taken up with the Parliament's session in Strasbourg. That expenditure is 200 million Euro per year! EU citizens are tryng to fight this kind of spilling taxpayers money. Click here for finding all the European MEPs

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EU Parliament and its Committees
Parliament has 20 outstanding Committees, each responsible for an area of community policy. There are also two subcommittees and special committees on an ad-hoc basis to address a special topic.
Each Committee elects a chair and four vice-chairs for two and a half years. Committees meet in public once or twice a month. The meetings are broadcasted live. For the Committee list click here and for the EU calendar click here.

No modern European democracy
without gender equality

Three Directives
There are many ingredients that will make 2009 and 2010 important years for gender equality in the European Union. Three proposal for EU legislation (directives) are currently being negotiated by the Member States and the European institutions.
1. The first Directive proposes significant improvements in the right to maternity leave throughout the EU;
2. the second Directive should introduce improvements to the situation of self-employed workers and assisting spouses/lifepartners;
3. and the third Directive will introduce an EU wide ban on discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation in media, education, social protection, and in access to goods and services.

Another negotiation process between social partners aims at revising the existing European legislation on parental leave.

Maternity Leave in the EU
The European Women's Lobby Calls for 24 Weeks Paid Maternity Leave for all women in the European Union. More than half of Member States have provisions that are above the Commission's new proposal.
Therefore, the EWL is calling for up to 24 weeks paid maternity leave which would reflect a more accurate average of practices currently in place.
Maternity leaves in the Netherlands is, at the moment, 8 - 16 weeks.

The situation for women in the EU in 2009

No Change in Europe's Gender Pay Gap
The gender pay gap across Europe remains almost as wide as a decade ago, despite women outperforming men academically, the European commission said today. Women earn an average of 15% less than men and have done for at least the last 10 years, the commission's research shows.

Absurd situation
Vladimir Spidla, the European commissioner for employment and equal pportunities, said in 2008, given that girls do better at school and more of them make it on to university, the continuing discrepancy was "an absurd situation and needs to change".
He blamed the pay gap on a range of factors including the need for women to spend time on unpaid work, such as taking care of the household and its dependants, as well as "pure discrimination".

How can we still turn a blind eye?
 500 000 women are victims of the slave trade every year.
How many more will be necessary to make Europe react firmly?

Victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation
The European Women's Lobby (EWL) has just released a new publication, which outlines the context for working against trafficking in women for sexual exploitation in Europe, and highlights the achievements of the Nordic Baltic Network in strengthening support and assistance to women victims of trafficking.

The Nordic Baltic Network, comprising of NGOs and government agencies was set up in 2006, to work together to develop the best possible models to support and assist women who are trafficked in all eight participating countries: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden.

If you want to download the publication in PDF format, click on the EWL website: http://www.womenlobby.org
or http://www.nordicbaltic-assistwomen.net

Thomas Hammarberg on hate crimes
The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg says that hate crimes are a daily reality all over the European continent.
Credible recent reports show that people suffer violence because they are black, Jewish, Roma or Muslim or because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. They give examples of how individuals have been physically attacked in the street, had their windows broken or homes put on fire. Government authorities have a responsibility to put an end to these shameful and serious crimes.

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