A4-0257/97

Resolution on the Annual Report from the Commission: Equal opportunities for women and men in the European Union 1996 (COM(96)0650 - C4-0084/97)

The European Parliament,

- having regard to the Annual report from the Commission (COM(96)0650 - C4- 0084/97),

- having regard to the Fourth Medium-Term Community Action Programme on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men (1996-2000) ((OJ L 335, 30.12.1995, p. 37.)) and its opinion of 17 November 1995 thereon ((OJ C 323, 4.12.1995, p. 167. )),

- having regard to the Platform For Action resulting from the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995,

- having regard to the Athens Declaration on 'women in power' of November 1992 and the Charter of Rome on 'Women for the Renewal of Politics and Society' agreed by women ministers in May 1996,

- having regard to the report of the Committee on Women's Rights and the opinions of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (A4-0257/97),

A. whereas the declared aims of the Annual Report on equal opportunities are to increase understanding of Community policy on equal opportunities among a wide readership and to encourage debate on future strategy,

B. whereas the EU took a leading role at the Beijing World Conference on Women and now has the opportunity to consolidate that position by being in the forefront of implementation of the Platform For Action's twelve strategic objectives,

C. whereas the European Councils at Essen and Madrid recognised the paramount importance of promoting equal opportunities between women and men,

D. whereas the importance of equal opportunities was sanctioned in the Amsterdam Draft Treaty in the additions to Articles 2 and 3 on the general principles governing the Union's actions, Article 119 on equal pay and a new Article 6a on combating gender-based discrimination,

E. whereas the concept of parity democracy between women and men should be put into effect in order to increase citizens' identification with the democratic process and political structures,

F. whereas the Charter of Rome concluded action plans covering women in decision-making not only in politics and public administration, but also in justice, public health, the financial sector, education and the social partners,

G. whereas despite the ever-growing presence of women on the labour market, women are still segregated in certain economic sectors and categories of activity, are therefore often relegated to atypical work or work at home and are still more vulnerable than their male colleagues to unemployment,

H. whereas the gap between women's and men's pay remains at an average of 20% in spite of EC and national legislation; whereas the Commission's code of conduct on equal pay for work of equal value provides a model for employers for the implementation and achievement of equal pay between women and men,

I. whereas only a small minority of the self-employed and those running small businesses are women,

J. whereas the social partners have recently concluded a draft framework agreement on part-time work which could have a momentous impact on women given that they make up 83% of part-time workers and many have suffered indirect discrimination due to their part-time status,

K. whereas reconciling work and home life is a question for both men and women and involves not just child-care facilities but care for other dependents such as the elderly, sick or disabled relatives, as well as basic lifestyle questions,

L. whereas measures to assist employees in combining work and family life have been found to improve productivity and staff retention,

The annual report

1. Warmly welcomes this first annual report, which will be a particularly useful instrument for monitoring national and Community policies on equal opportunities;

2. Regrets the lack of evaluation and analysis in this first annual report;

3. Calls on the Commission to strengthen the strategic nature of the report by setting out in a specific manner lines of action for the following year in the report itself, following the guidelines of the multiannual programme;

4. Deplores the fact that major areas of importance to discussions on equal opportunities between women and men have been overlooked in the annual report, most notably violence against women, women and health and the environment, the Intergovernmental Conference;

5. Urges the Commission to include in the next annual report:

- a greater focus on developments in the year in question,

- more examples from Member States,

- a glossary of terminology in the field of equal opportunities,

- greater analysis of the issues so that the report can form the basis for debate on future strategy;

6. Recommends that the specific subject to be given special attention in the next Annual Report should be the possible consequences of enlargement of the EU, including a survey of the status of equal opportunities in each of the applicant countries with reference to the acquis communautaire;

Mainstreaming

7. Considers that mainstreaming gender and equal opportunities should go hand in hand with positive action to promote women where they are particularly disadvantaged;

8. Calls on the Commission to present an annual progress report on mainstreaming as part of the Annual Report on Equal Opportunities;

9. Calls on the Commission to develop guidelines for making a gender-impact assessment of appropriate EU-legislative proposals along the lines of the impact statement attached already to many Commission proposals;

10. Calls on the Commission, Council and Member States to step up their monitoring of the application of the principle of mainstreaming in all their policies and measures;

11. Takes the view that gender-disaggregated statistics and data are an essential tool for assessing progress towards equality goals and for promoting mainstreaming by showing the differential impact on women and men of all policies, particularly in fields previously thought to be gender-neutral; considers it essential to identify comparable indicators, analysis procedures and information to facilitate a correct assessment of Community programmes dealing with equality;

12. Calls on the next multiannual framework programme on statistical information to recognise the importance of equal opportunities between women and men by developing methods of obtaining gender-disaggregated statistics in all relevant policy areas;

13. Calls on the Commission to establish the structures and funding necessary for the application of mainstreaming;

14. Considers that the integration of the principle of equal opportunities in the Structural Funds which started with the 1993 reform must be pursued; stresses in particular that, when the funds are reformed in the future, progress should be made with the application of mainstreaming by strengthening the 'horizontal' approach in the selection of measures to be funded by the Member States and a specific Community initiative to promote equal opportunities for men and women should be retained;

15. Notes that the progress made by measures funded from the ESF in the field of training encourages women's access to the labour market but focuses mainly on traditional 'women's jobs'; calls therefore on the Commission to give priority to training measures to end the segregation suffered by women in the labour market;

16. Commits itself to investigate ways of improving mainstreaming in its own work and welcomes initatives such as the proposal to establish a Mainstreaming Monitoring Board comprising members of each parliamentary standing committee;

Beijing Conference

17. Regrets that the Annual Report does not give a comprehensive overview of steps taken in Member States to implement the Platform For Action, with an evaluation of each of the twelve strategic objectives in the Platform;

18. Considers that the Beijing Platform should always be a starting point from which to develop policy in areas covered by the twelve strategic objectives;

19. Is concerned that little or no action has been taken at Community level to further the goals of the Platform For Action with regard to women and the environment and women and health;

Women in decision-making

20. Reminds Member States of their commitment made in the Beijing Platform For Action to review the differential impact of electoral systems on female political representation and to consider reform to the system where this is found to disadvantage women; urges political parties also to examine their internal structures and culture with a view to increasing women's political representation;

21. Bearing in mind the general decline in the number of women participating in decision-making bodies, calls for strategic policies to be strengthened in order to correct this trend and for measures to be taken to ensure that the Member States apply policies to promote women's participation more effectively;

22. Considers that studies should be undertaken to analyse the obstacles to women's access to decision-making posts, in the field of political and trade union activity and enterprise and to identify the disincentives (such as inadequate support for female party members, fixing of inconvenient times and places for meetings, lack of information or attitudes hostile to women's presence and participation);

23. Recognises that target figures and temporary quotas are an efficient and sometimes necessary means of increasing the number of women in decision- making positions in employment and representative bodies;

24. Takes the view that the media industry should be included in any future discussion of women in decision-making in view of the crucial role the media can play in giving a balanced and non-stereotyped presentation of women and men in society;

25. Calls on the Commission to include in its annual report a survey of the position of women in the European Institutions themselves, and to follow this up with further measures to improve the situation;

Women and the economy

26. Calls for further investigation of the relative merits to women of individual taxation and social security or benefit systems; believes that men and women should be treated alike with regard to tax policy and social security benefits; taxation should not discriminate against part-time work, and part-time workers should be covered by the same legislation on social security as full-time employees;

27. Insists on the need to take account of the consequences of ageing for social protection systems, in particular with respect to the increasing number of elderly women in Europe;

28. Reminds the Commission and Council that, under the framework provisions on employment adopted by the European Council in Essen, special attention is to be paid to women; stresses that the Member States should make provision in their multiannual programmes for measures to promote women's employment and insists on the need to promote investment in vocational training for women;

29. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to recognise the importance to job creation of women's entrepreneurship and various forms of cooperatives by developing initiatives, including those based on positive past experience, such as special loan facilities for women setting up small businesses;

30. Urges the Commission to put forward a proposal to amend the ineffective Directive 86/613/EEC on equal treatment for self-employed women and men, with a view to guaranteeing the visibility of and professional status for women who help in family businesses, of whom there are very many, especially in the agricultural sector, and who often find themselves in an extremely precarious situation, by ensuring them adequate social protection and the recognition of their role in the running of the family business;

31. Calls on the Commission to indicate in its next report the steps which have been taken to disseminate amongst all parties concerned the code of conduct on equal pay for work of equal value; hopes that the Commission will also make an initial evaluation in its report of the measures and examples of good policy which have been taken by way of implementation of the code of conduct;

32. Bearing in mind that women's employment is still characterized by low pay, atypical and insecure work and poor career prospects, calls for targeted measures to be adopted by the Member States to end this split in the labour market; calls also for the equal opportunities dimension to be included in all national measures to promote employment;

33. Requests that the European Union should introduce positive measures to put an end to this situation of exclusion in which women find themselves;

Combining work and household

34. Considers that ways must be found of enabling both women and men to combine employment with parenthood, that it would be appropriate to implement the guidelines on parental leave as defined at European level and to adopt equitable rules for part-time work, and that parental leave should be on such a scale that genuine equality can be attained and should extend to both parents;

35. Considers that a policy to promote the personal service sector, managed by means of flexible forms of cooperation between users, employers and public institutions is of great importance for the purpose of reconciling work and family responsibilities; stresses the need in future annual reports to emphasize the relation between social services (child care, assistance for the elderly) and women's participation in the labour market;

36. Calls on the Member States to comply with the recommendation adopted by the Council of Ministers in March 1992 on child care, whose objective is to 'progressively encourage initiatives to enable women and men to reconcile their occupational, family and upbringing responsibilities arising from the care of children';

37. Believes that the flexible labour market will be acceptable only if it is mirrored in the organisation of working hours for the benefit of both men and women;

38. Calls on Member States to increase flexibility in shop and public service opening hours with a view to facilitating reconciliation of professional and family life;

39. Considers that encouragement should be given to cultural, educational and social measures to ensure that men too are encouraged to opt more often for instruments and formulae to reconcile work and family life, such as part-time and atypical employment.

Women's rights

40. Urges the Commission and Member States to give priority to improving information to women on their fundamental human rights and on equal opportunities legislation in particular as a means of empowering them to take action to bring about greater equality between women and men;

41. Regrets the lack of attention paid in the Annual Report to the issue of violence against women, given that gender-based violence reflects the inequality between women and men in society;

42. Welcomes the new Article 6A in the Amsterdam draft Treaty on combating discrimination based on gender, race or ethnicity; hopes that on this basis measures will be taken to combat racism towards migrant women;

43. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States and the European social partners.