Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on Women and Poverty in the European Union
Date: 2005-10-13
Institutions: European Committee of the Regions
Subjects: European social policy, equal treatment, female work, gender equality, position of women, poverty

4.4.2006

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Official Journal of the European Union

C 81/37

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

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS,

(2006/C 81/10)

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 estab-
lishing 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 stipu-
lates 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 treat-
ment 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
for Employment and Social Solidarity —
Proposal
PROGRESS (8) (CdR 240/2004 fin);

for a Decision establishing a Community Programme

(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).

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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’;

in accordance with the Beijing Declaration,

‘eradication of poverty based on sustained economic
Whereas,
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

and resistance of the labour market to integrate women on an
equal footing with men.

The Committee of the Regions

considers that the European Parliament's referral should

1.1
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 work-
force (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

(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.

Take-up of

1.2.2
flexible forms of work is also greater
In 2002,
amongst women, making them more vulnerable.
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 counterba-
lanced 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 indivi-
dual 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).

The violence to which women are subjected is the
1.2.4
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.

(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.

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The Committee of the Regions

regrets that EU primary legislation, despite its trans-
1.2.5
national 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 prostitu-
tion remains acute: this problem does not only affect the coun-
tries 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
Justice, Freedom and
Security; it requires attention from all parties involved in the
fight against exclusion, offering social integration, training and
employment opportunities;

for

1.2.7
draws attention to the specific situation of ethnic
minority women within the European Union, for whom diffi-
culties 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

offers the following diagnosis:

1.3
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;

points out that although the network of legal experts
1.3.2
treatment
on the application of Community law on equal
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 discrimi-
nation and application of
the
burden of proof remains problematic in some Member States.

the principle of reversal of

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 deter-
mining 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 funda-
mental goals of the Lisbon strategy, which advocates more flex-
ible organisation of work. Such arrangements are intended to
create favourable conditions for full employment, social cohe-
sion 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;

notes that although the principle of gender main-
1.3.10
streaming 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.

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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;

highlights

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

the

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

to take

tiers of government

calls on the relevant

the special circumstances of

to also
2.6
specific groups of
consider
women: women with disabilities, older women, and women
living in rural areas, by offering solutions which address their
specific additional difficulties;

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’:

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;

— 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 mechan-

isms 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

considers local and regional authorities to be the level
2.1
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;

2.8
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;

regrets the growing influence of various forms of reli-
2.9
gious 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;

points out

2.10
that encouraging women to take the
opportunity of entrepreneurship in order to close the gender
gap in European employment
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;

is crucial

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;

(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).

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

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that

considers

2.13
to
combat the underlying inequalities must be the main priority.
The key factors leading to the exclusion of the most disadvan-
taged groups are:

introducing effective measures

— the over-representation of women in low-skilled jobs
resulting, on the one hand, from inadequate careers coun-
selling 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 detri-
mental 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

access

thinks that

to education,

2.14
the feminisation of
the fight against
poverty both outside and inside the EU should give priority to
equal
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;

eliminating female

The Committee of the Regions

reiterates its commitment to strict respect

2.17
subsidiarity principle:

for the

legislation must

Community
authorities'
freedom of choice with regard to the organisation and exercise
of their powers, in accordance with national legislation;

guarantee

local

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 represen-
tatives, and for assessing needs and providing practical solu-
tions to problems relating to gender inequality;

urges the Community budgetary authority to lower
2.18
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 (espe-
cially 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 organisa-
tions working at local and regional level. Women's organisa-
tions 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;

proposes that specific programmes be created for
2.19
local and regional authorities, with a view to encouraging them
to implement:

2.15
force for regional development:

considers that women's talents must become a driving

— programmes designed to integrate gender equality into all
local and regional policies at all stages of the policy-making
process (gender mainstreaming);

— balancing work, family and personal life would be a major
contribution to improving the employment rate and raising
the birth-rate;

— 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);

— 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.

— 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;

2.16
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.

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

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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;

notes

2.22
that on 31 May 2005 the Commission
submitted a proposal for a decision on the European Year of
(2007) — Towards a Just Society,
Equal Opportunities for All
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

Brussels, 13 October 2005.

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;

draws attention to the requirement

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

The President

of the Committee of the Regions

Peter STRAUB

Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on the Proposal for a Council Decision on the princi-
ples, priorities and conditions contained in the European Partnership with Croatia

(2006/C 81/11)

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS,

HAVING REGARD TO the Proposal for a Council Decision on the principles, priorities and conditions
contained in the European Partnership with Croatia (COM(2004) 275 final);

HAVING REGARD TO the European Commission's decision of 17 November 2004 to consult it under
the first paragraph of Article 265 of the Treaty establishing the European Community;

HAVING REGARD TO its Bureau's decision of 15 June 2004 to instruct the Commission for External
Relations to draw up an opinion on the European Commission's strategy on progress in the enlargement
process;

HAVING REGARD TO the Presidency Conclusions of the June 2003 Thessaloniki European Council and
the December 2004 Brussels European Council;

HAVING REGARD TO the Council Decision of 13 September 2004 on the principles, priorities and
conditions contained in the European Partnership with Croatia;

HAVING REGARD TO the European Parliament report on the application by Croatia for accession to
the European Union (A5-0206/2004);

HAVING REGARD TO the 2003 European Commission report on stabilisation and association;

HAVING REGARD TO the April 2004 Communication from the Commission: Opinion on Croatia's
application for membership of the European Union (COM (2004) 257 final);

HAVING REGARD TO the Council Decision concerning the conclusion of the association and stabilisa-
tion agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the
Republic of Croatia, of the other part;

HAVING REGARD TO the Council Decision of 3 October 2005 in favour of opening accession negotia-
tions with Croatia;

HAVING REGARD TO the declarations and recommendations adopted by the EU-Croatia Joint Parlia-
mentary Committee on 5 October 2005;