Mr President, may I start by saying how delighted I am to see the new generation of Europe in the visitors’ gallery following this debate, which directly affects their future. No one will be surprised if I say that this European Commission report gave us yet another opportunity to confirm that the equal opportunities situation is totally unsatisfactory. Unfortunately, however, the European Commission report is also unsatisfactory. It is still a descriptive annual report. Of course the 2001 report contains more facts and figures than previous reports but it is still the product of a routine exercise. It fails to illustrate properly either where we have failed to achieve our targets or commitments or the real difficulties in applying our policies at European and national level. Although it refers to future developments, it fails to set specific commitments or timetables. Turning now to individual issues, the European Commission is clearly finding it hard to apply equal opportunities and is failing to do so adequately. Some Directorates-General are not making commitments in this area. At the same time, action to encourage more women to apply to participate in applications has been unsuccessful. Our motion for a resolution calls on the European Commission to examine new ways of disseminating information and simplifying bureaucratic and other commitments which will allow women and women’s organisations to find out about and take part in European programmes. The same applies to the Member States, which are having trouble understanding gender equality and implementing it in practice. Where there are no central or regional political support mechanisms, equal opportunities programmes are not being applied. Member States generally have no quantitative targets in their programmes, do not evaluate the repercussions of equal opportunities on their economic policy and have no indicators or statistics broken down by gender either for programming or for evaluating national policies. So it would be very useful for the purpose of raising awareness of the situation and drawing up future policies if the European Commission were to conduct a serious study with indicators and comparative data on the situation in each Member State, especially on the application of Community legislation, so that we can compare problems and achievements and exchange best practices. During the forthcoming year, 2003, the European institutions and Member States will need to act boldly and decisively. During the mid-term review of the Structural Funds which, as we know, will take place in 2003, the Member States will need to decide where there is room to promote equal opportunities, so as to prevent appropriations for measures to benefit women from being transferred to other objectives. We shall be preparing for the first European elections to include the candidate countries in 2003, and for national elections in various Member States. The Council recommendations on the equal participation of men and women have not brought about the expected results. Nor does the Council have a competent agency to help improve the coordination of equality-related issues. As for the European Commission, we are anxiously waiting for it to present a proposal for a gender equality directive based on Article 13 as quickly as possible, so that we can follow up the equal opportunities programme decided in Beijing and achieve our self-imposed targets throughout the fabric of economic and public life. All of this, you will say, has been said many times before, and you would be right. Numerous people have commented, both inside and outside Parliament, that we women and some of the men working on these issues are becoming tiresome and repeating ourselves. We need to ask ourselves why they make these comments. Why does this issue not affect our society or at least not with the degree of importance we attach to it as regards both the human and economic factor? Why are our policies and principles not being applied directly and properly? I think that now more than ever we need to conduct a broad, ground-breaking dialogue with society and with those responsible for exercising European policy. What we want from the European Commission, Commissioner, are good ideas and efficient ways of applying them. Where the European Commission cannot force the Member States, it should encourage them to realise that equality brings benefits, not losses and difficulties. Let them understand how important promoting equality is to the strategic objectives set by the European Union, and I refer here both to the Lisbon objectives, which have been complicated by enlargement, and the objectives of defending human rights throughout the world and contributing to the economic and social advancement of mankind, especially in our own neck of the woods, by which I mean the Balkans and the Mediterranean.

Political group: PPE-DE