EN Official Journal of the European Union C 81/37

Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on Women and Poverty in the European Union

(2006/C 81/10)

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS,

Having regard to the decision of the European Parliament of 11 May 2005 to consult it on the subject of Women and Poverty in the European Union, under the fourth paragraph of Article 265 of the Treaty establishing the European Community;

Having regard to the decision of its President of 19 May 2005 to instruct its Commission for Economic and Social Policy to draw up an opinion on this subject;

Having regard to Article 2 of the EC Treaty (1), which states that the promotion of equality between men and women is one of the tasks of the Community;

Having regard to Article 3 of the EC Treaty, which states that the Community shall aim to eliminate inequalities, and to promote equality, between men and women in all the policies of the European Union;

Having regard to Article 13 of the EC Treaty, which gives the Commission the right to take appropriate action to combat discrimination of all kinds, including discrimination based on sex;

Having regard to Article 141 of the EC Treaty, which stipulates that the principle of equal pay for male and female workers for equal work or work of equal value be applied;

Having regard to Article 23 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which stipulates that the principle of equality between women and men must be ensured in all areas;

Having regard to the Conclusions of the Lisbon Summit (2000), which set the aim of achieving an overall employment rate of 70 % and to increase the number of women in employment to 60 % by 2010;

Having regard to the Council Decision establishing a Programme relating to the Community framework strategy on gender equality (2001-2005) (2);

Having regard to its Opinion on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men in the European Union (CdR 161/1996 fin);

Having regard to its Opinion on the Commission Communication Towards a Community framework strategy on gender equality (2001-2005) and the Proposal for a Council Decision establishing an action programme relating to the Community framework strategy on gender equality (3) (CdR 233/2000 fin);

Having regard to its Opinion on the Proposal for a Council Directive implementing the principle of equal treatment between women and men in the access to and supply of goods and services (4) (CdR 19/2004 fin);

Having regard to its Opinion on the Communication from the Commission on establishing the guidelines for the second round of the Community Initiative EQUAL concerning transnational cooperation to promote new means of combating all forms of discrimination and inequalities in connection with the labour market: Free movement of good ideas (5) (CdR 96/2004 fin);

Having regard to its Opinion of 18 November 2004 on the Green Paper on Equality and non-discrimination in an enlarged European Union (6) (CdR 241/2004 fin);

Having regard to its Opinion on the Proposal for a Regulation on the European Social Fund (7) and the Proposal for a Decision establishing a Community Programme for Employment and Social Solidarity — PROGRESS (8) (CdR 240/2004 fin);

Having regard to its Opinion on the Communication from the Commission on the Social Agenda (9) (CdR 80/2005 rev.1);

Having regard to the Declaration of the Fourth World Conference on Women adopted in Beijing on 15 September 1995 (Beijing Declaration), and the Platform for Action appended thereto;

Having regard to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), and more especially the goals to ‘promote gender equality and empower women’ and to ‘improve maternal health’;

Whereas, in accordance with the Beijing Declaration, ‘eradication of poverty based on sustained economic growth, social development, environmental protection and social justice requires the involvement of women in economic and social development, equal opportunities and the full and equal participation of women and men as agents and beneficiaries of people-centred sustainable development’;

Having regard to its draft opinion (CdR 151/2005 rev.1) adopted on 29 June 2005 by the Commission for Economic and Social Policy (rapporteur: Ms Mireille Lacombe (FR/PES), Member of Puy-de-Dôme Council, France),

Unanimously adopted the following opinion at its 61st plenary session, held on 12 and 13 October 2005 (meeting of 13 October).

1. The views of the Committee of the Regions

The Committee of the Regions

1.1 considers that the European Parliament's referral should be assessed against the following background:

1.1.1 Women, particularly older women and single mothers with one or more children, suffer to a greater extent than men from insecurity and poverty; 17 % of women still live below the at-risk of poverty threshold (10).

1.1.2 For women, access to properly paid employment provides the best guarantee against insecurity, by ensuring their independence and autonomy and enabling them to cope with family breakdown.

1.1.3 In Europe, women make up almost half of the workforce (11). Across Europe, the norm is now for women to have paid employment. However, despite women's major advance into the labour market over time, the aim to increase the number of women in employment to 60 %, set at the Lisbon Summit in 2000, has not been achieved. Unemployment rates are still higher for women than for men in most countries. Similarly, women suffer disproportionately from long-term unemployment, particularly in southern Europe.

The Committee of the Regions

1.2 stresses that the multiple forms of discrimination to which women are subject are also obstacles to the realisation of European objectives:

1.2.1 Women's salaries remain lower than men's. Despite the 1975 Directive on the principle of equal pay for work of equal value, the wage gap between women and men still stands at around 15 %. (12) Wage inequalities reflect the real obstacles and resistance of the labour market to integrate women on an equal footing with men.

1.2.2 Take-up of flexible forms of work is also greater amongst women, making them more vulnerable. In 2002, 33.5 % of women worked part-time, against 6.5 % of men. In ten years, the share of women in part-time work has increased twice as fast (4.7 points compared with 2.3 points). When women are not obliged to take up part-time work by employers, they are often forced to work part time as a result of the lack of high-quality care provision for children or elderly parents. Women's quality of life is eroded by the double shift. Although men do now believe they have a key role to play in gender equality, the actual division of domestic labour within the couple has changed very little. What women have gained in terms of autonomy through work has often been counterbalanced by declining quality of life in the most disadvantaged groups. In the face of these constraints, the ‘choices’ to work part time or to stop work after the birth of a child are individual responses to difficult situations. This heightens the risk of insecurity if family breakdown occurs.

1.2.3 Women make up the majority of the elderly (13) and there are considerable and significant gaps between monthly pension entitlements (14).

1.2.4 The violence to which women are subjected is the greatest and gravest manifestation of the discrimination they face. Gender-based violence has a devastating impact on women, disrupting their personal lives, destabilising their working lives and contributing to exclusion. Such violence is cited as one of the reasons for women's disproportionately low participation in public and political life. Domestic violence is one of the main reasons for family breakdown.

The Committee of the Regions

1.2.5 regrets that EU primary legislation, despite its transnational nature and its primacy in all EU Member States, provides no specific legal basis for direct action to combat violence against women;

1.2.6 points out that the issue of trafficking and prostitution remains acute: this problem does not only affect the countries of origin and destination, but also the countries of transit. The approach to this issue must transcend the purely repressive measures taken via the programmes managed by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Justice, Freedom and Security; it requires attention from all parties involved in the fight against exclusion, offering social integration, training and employment opportunities;

1.2.7 draws attention to the specific situation of ethnic minority women within the European Union, for whom difficulties in accessing education contribute to exclusion, as does the weight of certain traditions, which hinder their integration into European society.

The Committee of the Regions

1.3 offers the following diagnosis: it is unequal treatment between women and men that causes insecurity or the risk of insecurity, with the attendant risks of descent into poverty and exclusion;

1.3.1 welcomes the fact that EU legislation on combating discrimination is amongst the most advanced in the world and is generally considered to be an effective model;

1.3.2 points out that although the network of legal experts on the application of Community law on equal treatment between women and men considers that ‘the principle of equal treatment between men and women appears to have been implemented in all the national legal systems’, it also notes that difficulties still occur in defining the concepts of direct and indirect discrimination. The network also states that the definition of positive discrimination and application of the principle of reversal of the burden of proof remains problematic in some Member States.

The Committee of the Regions

1.3.3 notes, however, that adequate steps have not been taken to implement the gender mainstreaming strategy, which involves integrating the gender equality dimension into all macro-economic policies;

1.3.4 stresses that the EC's Court of Justice has considered, for example in its judgment in the case C-285/98 Tanja Kreil (11 January 2000), that the right not to suffer discrimination on the grounds of sex is a fundamental right in Community law and that any derogation from it must be interpreted strictly. The Court also specified in this judgment that, in determining the scope of any derogation from an individual right such as the equal treatment of men and women, the principle of proportionality must also be observed and that this principle requires that derogations remain within the limits of what is appropriate and necessary in order to achieve the aim in view;

1.3.5 while pointing out that policies for improving work-life balance do not run counter to recognition of women's right to work, regrets policies aiming to encourage women to return to the home when such policies have the sole aim of reducing the unemployment figures;

1.3.6 notes that, in all the Member States, part-time work — the share of which in total employment varies from 18 % in the EU-15 to 10 % in new Member States and candidate countries — remains the preserve of women, and, with the exception of Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Cyprus, the majority of women claim (as in Greece, Portugal, Italy, Finland and Sweden) that, given the option, they would prefer to work full-time. Women who have ‘chosen’ to work part-time (over 40 % in Denmark and Sweden, over 60 % in France, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom) usually do so because of family responsibilities;

1.3.7 emphasises that striking an adequate balance between job flexibility and security is essential for achieving the fundamental goals of the Lisbon strategy, which advocates more flexible organisation of work. Such arrangements are intended to create favourable conditions for full employment, social cohesion and the establishment of a readily accessible labour market;

1.3.8 is in favour of more flexible work arrangements which do not conflict with the aim of achieving professional equality between men and women in the European Union;

1.3.9 endorses the definition espoused at European level, i.e. that indirect discrimination occurs where an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice would put persons of one sex at a particular disadvantage compared with persons of the other sex and is not objectively justified by a legitimate aim. Indirect discrimination has a destructive impact on women and stems from gender-blind public policies that fail to assess their different impacts on women and men sufficiently early in the policy-making process;

1.3.10 notes that although the principle of gender mainstreaming appears in planning documents for Member States' devolved regional policies, this principle has not been applied systematically when implementing programmes: gender is often merely cited, rather than being made a real consideration in project selection. The Committee calls on the EU's regional and local authorities to accord greater importance to the potential for change that could be achieved by a strategy of mainstreaming gender equality in all stages of planning and implementing regional policies.

1.4 The feminisation of poverty in the global context

The Committee of the Regions

1.4.1 has already welcomed the fact that the European Commission considers equality between women and men to be a key objective of the EU's external and development policy and an essential feature of the core labour standards adopted at international level (15). This is all the more important in the light of the International Labour Organisation's observation that 70 % of the world's 1.3 billion people living below the poverty line (i.e. on an income of less than one US dollar per day) are women;

1.4.2 points out that in this context, the Beijing Platform for Action remains fully relevant, in particular the four strategic objectives relating to ‘women and poverty’: — review, adopt and maintain macroeconomic policies and development strategies that address the needs and efforts of women in poverty; — revise laws and administrative practices to ensure women's equal rights and access to economic resources; — provide women with access to savings and credit mechanisms and institutions; — develop gender-based methodologies and conduct research to address the feminisation of poverty;

1.4.3 stresses, however, that the implementation of these strategic objectives should not be confined to the EU's external and development policies: it should also underpin the fight against the feminisation of poverty within the Union.

2. The recommendations of the Committee of the Regions

The Committee of the Regions

2.1 considers local and regional authorities to be the level of government closest to the citizen and therefore best placed to combat exclusion;

2.2 believes that, whilst it is important to combat poverty, the priority must be to eradicate, at local and regional level, the inequalities which cause it;

2.3 calls on Member States to promote services of general interest which are capable of making women's employment more secure, consolidating social protection of individuals and combating the feminisation of poverty;

2.4 highlights the restrictions on immigrant women's ability to access social protection, since they are often seen only as the wives or daughters of immigrant men;

2.5 urges the appropriate levels of government to take better account of the issue of violence against women;

2.6 calls on the relevant tiers of government to also consider the special circumstances of specific groups of women: women with disabilities, older women, and women living in rural areas, by offering solutions which address their specific additional difficulties;

2.7 calls on the Member States to establish more equitable rights in relation to paid parental leave so as to enable fathers to play a more active role in bringing up their children;

2.8 points out that the EU accession of the central and eastern European countries led women in those countries to expect that the transposition of EU gender-equality legislation would improve equality and offer them new opportunities; therefore recommends that, with respect to the Member States which have experienced system change since 1989, gender disaggregated statistics be produced in order to investigate the effects of economic and political change on the gender equality situation on the ground. This study could form part of the work programme of the European institute for gender equality;

2.9 regrets the growing influence of various forms of religious fundamentalism which aim to restrict or abolish women's sexual and reproductive rights, and which have been evident for ten years at local and regional level across Europe;

2.10 points out that encouraging women to take the opportunity of entrepreneurship in order to close the gender gap in European employment is crucial for the economic future and prosperity of the European Union, as is support from the relevant tiers of government to help women gain access to new technologies;

2.11 would nevertheless emphasise that the poorest women have only limited access to such opportunities, given their vulnerability, their precarious social position and the general reluctance of the credit sector and those providing access to financing for new businesses and economic activity to place confidence in them;

2.12 calls on the relevant tiers of government to put in place the necessary conditions for promoting women's participation in political life;

2.13 considers that introducing effective measures to combat the underlying inequalities must be the main priority. The key factors leading to the exclusion of the most disadvantaged groups are: — the over-representation of women in low-skilled jobs resulting, on the one hand, from inadequate careers counselling and the frequent failure to recognise women's skills and qualifications and, on the other, from the fact that, once in these jobs, women tend to remain there, with no further career progress; — the development of forced part-time work, whose detrimental effect on women is heightened by the fact that it tends to go hand in hand with irregular shifts, thereby making balancing employment, family responsibilities and social participation still more difficult; — the nature of women's jobs, which have a wider impact on patterns of insecurity, beyond integration into employment; — the unsuitability and inadequacy of care provision for small children and dependent older relatives: the existence of high-quality, affordable care is a prerequisite for women's participation in employment and social activities.

The Committee of the Regions

2.14 thinks that the fight against the feminisation of poverty both outside and inside the EU should give priority to equal access to education, eliminating female illiteracy, improving female access to vocational training, scientific and technical education, and further training, as well as female access to new information technologies, especially in rural communities;

2.15 considers that women's talents must become a driving force for regional development: — balancing work, family and personal life would be a major contribution to improving the employment rate and raising the birth-rate; — many women of child-bearing age have to 'choose' between a career and bringing up their children; — good policies supporting working parents could raise the birth and employment rates; — women who do take the option of dedicating themselves full time to their children during the pre-school years should have the opportunity to access advice and training in order to facilitate their re-entry into the labour market, and to minimise the impact on their career progression.

2.16 stresses the need to combat obstacles to the re-employment of women who have interrupted their careers: unequal access to housing, training, refresher courses and job opportunities, as well as discrimination on the labour market due to age and family responsibilities.

The Committee of the Regions

2.17 reiterates its commitment to strict respect for the subsidiarity principle: Community legislation must guarantee local authorities' freedom of choice with regard to the organisation and exercise of their powers, in accordance with national legislation; in the context of devolution, local and regional authorities are the appropriate tier of government for promoting dialogue with local communities, via their networks of elected representatives, and for assessing needs and providing practical solutions to problems relating to gender inequality;

2.18 urges the Community budgetary authority to lower the financial eligibility thresholds for projects submitted under Community gender equality programmes, without lowering the ceilings. This would make it easier to match the projects (especially those for the exchange of good practice, but also those coming under decentralised cooperation projects) with the co-financing that can be mobilised by non-governmental organisations working at local and regional level. Women's organisations that operate at local, regional or national level and are capable of conducting transnational projects should also be able to access project funding; they should not be excluded on the grounds that they are not organised at EU level;

2.19 proposes that specific programmes be created for local and regional authorities, with a view to encouraging them to implement: — programmes designed to integrate gender equality into all local and regional policies at all stages of the policy-making process (gender mainstreaming); — programmes to take better account of women's needs and the disaggregation of resources by gender when drawing up local and regional authority budgets (gender budgeting); — awareness-raising programmes for elected representatives and training programmes for local authority staff to enable them to conduct gender equality policies; — trans-national cooperation to circulate good practice in the area of gender equality; — new forms of management and governance through which women can reach the most senior levels in all decision-making bodies in order to give gender equality issues greater political resonance;

2.20 suggests that the European Commission draw up a handbook of good practice regarding the implementation of gender policies, for the benefit of the EU's local and regional authorities;

2.21 calls on the EU's local and regional authorities to make gender equality a fully fledged part of their decentralised cooperation projects, for example by means of projects focusing on female access to education, or to micro-funding for commercial activities;

2.22 notes that on 31 May 2005 the Commission submitted a proposal for a decision on the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All (2007) — Towards a Just Society, which the Committee will address in a separate opinion. Nevertheless, in order to ensure that 2007 gives a new impetus to the practical application of European legislation to combat discrimination, and gender-based discrimination in particular, the CoR invites the EU institutions, as of now, to make use of its services as an information and action relay for the EU's local and regional authorities;

2.23 draws attention to the requirement for territorial cohesion in the financial perspectives for 2007-2013 and stresses the importance of the future Structural Funds continuing to support women's initiatives at local level, especially in the most disadvantaged regions in the EU.

Brussels, 13 October 2005. The President of the Committee of the Regions Peter STRAUB

(1) References of the treaties in force (Nice Treaty).

(2) OJ L 17 of 19.1.2001, p. 22.

(3) OJ C 144 of 16.5.2001, p.47 (COM(2000) 335 final – 2000/0143 CNS).

(4) OJ C 121 of 30.4.2003, p.25 (COM(2003) 657 final – 2003/0265 CNS).

(5) OJ C 318 of 22.12.2004, p.15 (COM(2003) 840 final).

(6) OJ C 71 of 23.2.2005, p.62 (COM(2004) 379 final).

(7) OJ C 164 of 5.7.2005, p.48 (COM(2004) 493 final – 2004/0165 COD).

(8) OJ C 164 of 5.7.2005, p.48 (COM(2004) 488 final – 2004/0158 COD).

(9) COM(2005) 33 final.

(10) EU-25 – The at-risk of poverty threshold is defined as 60 % of the average national income, including benefits. Eurostat 2001.

(11) 44 % of women of working age are in employment in the EU.

(12) Eurostat 2003. The wage gap ranges from 4 % in Malta to 25 % in Cyprus.

(13) 60 % of the over 65s and almost 2/3 of the over 75s.

(14) For example, the average gap between women's and men's monthly pensions in France is 42 % (EUR 848 as against EUR 1416); in Spain the gap is 37 % (EUR 405 as against EUR 650) and in Austria, the figures vary from EUR 734 to EUR 1334.

(15) CoR opinion on the Communication from the Commission on the social dimension of globalisation – the EU's policy contribution on extending the benefits to all (COM(2004) 383 final).