Mr President, for the first time now, the European Parliament has participated in reforming Community legislation on equality by virtue of the codecision procedure. I am pleased to inform you all that the European Parliament has genuinely left its mark on this directive, whose purpose it is to prevent any kind of discrimination at work on grounds of sex. I believe that many will have noticed that it is the European Parliament that has made the most innovative proposals of all, which are now incorporated in this key directive on equality at work. In response to our demands, employers in the European Union will for the first time now be obliged to take committed action to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. The very fact that employers will be obliged to take action is very important as the problem has to be addressed through action and not just by issuing various declarations. This means that employers that fail in their obligation to create working conditions that pre-empt sexual harassment may also become liable for prosecution by the courts as a result. In practice this means that structures must be created at the workplace where an employee is guaranteed to receive help when harassment has occurred, and where any such action also has a preventative effect. In response to a requirement by the European Parliament the directive also includes the idea that equality has to start being promoted at the workplace through concrete planning. This means that we have created a grassroots instrument that guarantees that employers and employees will, through a united effort, make a survey of areas that are unsatisfactory at their workplace and that they can eliminate them through the same united effort. In this regard I might say that developments in EU legislation are moving very much in the direction of the Nordic model. These sorts of instruments have been in place for some time now in the Nordic countries, and not just there but also in countries such as Belgium and Italy. This directive will also afford greater protection from discrimination against mothers and fathers at the workplace. It is obviously very important that when parents, whether fathers or mothers, return to work from paternity, maternity or parental leave, they can actually be given a job equivalent to the one they did before and can also enjoy all the benefits they would have had while they were away from work. From this you may have already concluded that fathers and men in general have now been included in the Community legislation on gender equality. This is also absolutely vital as there is much debate going on in all our Member States about how men can be included in the promotion of equality. We should also take into account the fact that men can also be victims. An employer may also discriminate against a father returning to work from parental leave or insisting on his statutory right to work a shorter working day. This directive now forbids all such discrimination. It is also very important that under this directive all Member States must establish an authority that is in practice responsible for promoting these developments and which also monitors them. I would like to say that this will be of particularly great importance for the future Member States in Central and Eastern Europe, where the position of women has become noticeably problematic with the structural changes that have been taking place. In this way the European Union can also promote concrete improvements in gender equality in the future Member States. Parliament should feel very pleased with the results of this conciliation process. We have in practice achieved all our objectives and I might also say that the level of cooperation among the political groups has been quite excellent.

Political group: Verts-ALE