Mr President, Commissioner, we must take pleasure in the fact that we have here today the Daphne II programme, which follows on from the previous Daphne I programme and takes up the recommendations made in the assessment report on Daphne I, for which I was rapporteur. The Daphne programme is aimed at preventing and combating all forms of violence against children, young people and women within the framework of a multidisciplinary approach and has contributed to creating greater awareness in the European Union of this extremely serious problem which regrettably affects the whole of society. The success has been noted of the previous programme, which has allowed us to introduce certain innovations into Daphne II, of which I would emphasise, firstly, the significant budgetary increase: we have risen from EUR 20 million to EUR 50 million, which, although it still seems insufficient, represents considerable progress; secondly, the exchange of good practices and experiences, particularly of preventive measures and help for victims, as well as studies and research; thirdly, the creation of educational instruments in schools, where we must begin to prevent violence and promote equality; finally, the introduction of training programmes for the professionals in question, such as lawyers, police, doctors etc., and also the development and implementation of rehabilitation programmes for aggressors, since sometimes aggressors leave prison and go back to attacking the victim, causing them further harm. This is an innovation which I believe to be very important for the future. We must also pay particular attention to prevention for the groups at greatest risk, such as disabled women or women in a special situation because they have been victims of violence previously. In other words, it is a programme which continues to insist on zero tolerance of violence against children, adolescents and women. I would also like to refer very briefly to the report presented by Mrs Bastos on reconciling work and family life. I must congratulate her on her very interesting and very in-depth work, which must form the basis of other work by the Commission, in order to be able to do something which really has an effect on the legislations of the Member States in terms of the reconciliation of work and family life. We must create conditions which help women to develop their professional lives without creating problems for their families, by means of appropriate modifications in terms of new part-time working contracts, bearing in mind that this must not create problems with social security contributions which may prejudice future benefits, with the creation of nurseries and of day centres for dependent persons, who are also generally the responsibility of women, as well as tax assistance and assistance for families with larger numbers of children. We must achieve better pay for women who, unfortunately, we know are still being paid less than men for the same work, and we must make progress on the Lisbon objectives so that a greater presence for women in the workplace becomes a reality. Equal conditions must not mean that women give up on family life, as often happens, or on motherhood and many other responsibilities. We must bring about a change which leads to greater reconciliation and shared responsibilities with men on an equal footing.

Political group: PPE-DE