Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for what you have just said, which makes us very optimistic that we will be able to get rid of the unequal treatment that exists in the insurance sector. The preparatory work has been very hard work and very long, but it has brought us at last to the point where we can vote on the report. This proposal for a directive was announced as long ago as June 2000, when it featured in the Commission’s social policy agenda and was called for by the Heads of State or Government at the Nice European Council in December 2000. Four years on, the same gentlemen are still around and, now that the draft of such a directive is on the table, they are opposing it. It took three years before, in September last year, a proposal was submitted, and this, too, was given a very rough ride by the Commission. Then, in September 2003, I, as rapporteur, organised a public hearing in order to gain broad public support for our cause. This hearing was very interesting and gave rise to some exciting developments, including the discovery of how questionable are the often-quoted statistics on the basis of which it is possible to charge women higher insurance premiums. In the United Kingdom, for example, the lowest life expectancy for both men and women is in Manchester, while men’s life expectancy is highest in West Dorset and women’s highest in West Somerset. This exactly parallels the way in which men in the former East Germany live longer than men in the West, and the East-West divide, in terms of life expectancy, that exists in Austria. What this means is that gender is certainly not the only factor in this; I believe that our approach to this equality directive cannot be based on economic factors to the exclusion of all others, and that this involves a purely political decision, the political will to declare ourselves in favour of equality or against it. We also found it very regrettable that the final Commission proposal for a directive took no account of education, decision-making processes, and the content of media and advertising. This leads me to agree with my colleague Mrs Swiebel’s view that, while a progressive approach is certainly not the best solution, it may well be the first manageable one. This directive is very feeble in comparison with the existing directive on the principle of equal treatment on grounds of race, which goes much further in its demands. So let me thank Commissioner Diamantopoulou for taking this important step, while, at the same time, encouraging the Commission – through you, Commissioner Dimas – to delay no longer in adopting further proposals on comprehensive measures to combat sexual discrimination and to guarantee de facto equality in areas other than employment. This directive is explicitly founded upon Article 13, inserted by the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997, and I do not share the view of certain members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market that it should have Article 95 as its basis. Were that the case, I believe that it would have permitted access to the internal market in purely economic terms, and I am not sure that the Council would have allowed Parliament the power of codecision over it. What is crucial – it is indeed at the heart of this report – is the actuarial factor, on which the insurance lobby has based its arguments, and which is the starting point for most of our differences. Gender must not be used as an actuarial factor in calculating premiums and benefits. To use gender as an objective factor is discriminatory, as gender is not freely chosen; women and men are born as what they are. For example, I have learned from many discussions that women in the insurance sector, and not just insurance companies themselves, defend the idea that women alone should bear the costs of pregnancy, justifying this by saying that they too, use medical services. As all women pay the same amount, there is solidarity between women who have children and those who do not, but what about men, who do, after all, have some part in women becoming pregnant? At the moment, family policy is a big thing; demands are made for families to be supported and we are told that we need more children to be born, economics ministers trumpet aloud improvements to family policy while, at the same volume, proclaiming their opposition to this directive. This goes to show that family policy, just as much as women’s policies, is very often no more than a way for our male politicians to get themselves off the hook, with their fine words left hanging in the air while none of the things that are promised actually materialise. I would like to clarify that the calculation of premiums on the basis of risk is to continue to be possible, but that gender must not be included as a factor in these calculations. Using gender or race – both of them factors outside the control of the individual – as a factor in calculating premiums amounts to discrimination.

Political group: PSE