Debate: MeToo and harassment – the consequences for the EU institutions
Date: THURSDAY, 16 DECEMBER 2021
Speaker: Evelyn Regner
Country: Netherlands
Language: EN

We are indeed in a crisis, not only a sanitary one, a crisis of women and their rights. Women’s rights have to be a priority on everyone’s political agenda, also within the European Parliament and the other European institutions. We are not only an important political institution, we are also a workplace for thousands of people. And as a workplace, one thing is essential: respect. Respect between all of us, no matter the function or hierarchy. And this is why the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality has tabled this oral question and drafted the resolution on MeToo and harassment in general.  It is not the first resolution on the topic. We already had two previous ones in 2017 and 2019. Harassment is still widespread in the European Union. We know that 90% of victims of sexual harassment are women and that sexual harassment is affecting 55% of all women in the European Union. This is more than a quarter of the population, and this number is higher when you ask women in the services sector, namely 61%, and rises to 75% of women working in top management or high-qualification jobs.  In addition, we also know that harassment is significantly under-reported, meaning numbers could be even worse than this. So this is why in the resolution we call on the Council to finally unblock the Istanbul Convention.  The Court of Justice recently confirmed that there is no legal obligation to wait on such an important topic like gender-based violence. The Council finally has to move; a workplace has to be safe, and harassment is a matter of health and safety, of workplace culture and of human rights.  We need to ensure that in the European Parliament we have zero tolerance towards any form of harassment, that victims are supported and know where to go and that perpetrators face consequences. In two previous resolutions, we had already called for mandatory anti-harassment trainings, but so far they were only voluntary and, shamefully, only a quarter of all Members have participated in one of these basic trainings. We can and we will have to do better than this. The first step? More languages so our Members can participate in their native language and targeted outreach and in addition, a public list on the European Parliament’s website of those Members who are a positive example since they already did the training and, crucially, finally making these trainings mandatory for Members, because apparently voluntary measures are not enough.  This does not interfere with our free mandate. On the contrary, we ask to be decent human beings towards our employees, so who would oppose that? The details of possible legally sound consequences will have to be discussed in detail and one might be to limit the recruitment of staff because it’s not assured that the staff would be safe. Furthermore, we need to run an awareness-raising campaign and prevent any kind of retaliations against complaints, victims, witnesses and whistle-blowers. And in this regard, the resolution also calls for training for all levels of staff and an independent evaluation on the existing mechanisms and bodies. This includes an external audit, as already foreseen in the budget 2021, and, key here is also often transparency.  We know that the European Commission is reviewing its anti-harassment policy and in view of this, the three following questions are included in today’s oral question to the Commission. What are the main elements of the anti-harassment strategies of the Commission and other European Union institutions and agencies? Are there any best practices on preventing conflict and harassment in the workplace and on good office management that could be applied throughout all institutions? And, is training on the prevention of sexual harassment mandatory at the Commission and other European Union institutions and agencies?  Let me conclude with the following statement. Anyone can be affected by harassment –Members, the political staff, the administrative staff. It happened to me, it happened to some assistants and it happened to staff members I know. So we all should be protected in case of harassment, but even more so, we should be allowed to work without such a violation of our human rights. We all have the right to a safe and healthy workplace. We, as the European Parliament, could become a good example for other institutions and support them with creating and implementing anti-harassment measures, as well as gender action plans. It’s high time we treat each other respectfully. It’s high time we eradicate any form of harassment.