By Sophie Petitjean
The European Pact for Gender Equality, currently being developed by the Hungarian Presidency of the EU, contains neither legislative measures nor definite objectives, according to information obtained by Europolitics.
The document, intended to accompany the European Commission’s gender equality strategy for 2010-2015, will not elicit great hopes among the organisations working to promote gender equality in the light of the “limited impact of its predecessors,” as the European Women’s Lobby described it. According to the lobby, the 2006 Pact for Gender Equality (which accompanied the Commission’s road map for the period 2005-2010), was “very short, imprecise and largely ignored”.
The new pact, which is still at the development stage, is longer: six pages, compared with two in 2006. However, the latest information shows that member states are not showing a great deal more ambition this time around. The document calls for measures to remove demographic barriers by promoting a better balance between professional and private life. It also addresses areas such as salary inequality, discrimination on the employment market and violence against women. Elsewhere, the text refers to the commitment made by European heads of state, in Barcelona in 2002, to establish structures by 2010 to provide child care facilities for at least 90% of children between three years old and the age of compulsory schooling, and for at least 33% of those under the age of three. Finally, the draft pact backs the conclusions adopted by member states under the Belgian Presidency of the EU, reinforcing their commitment to tackling the pay gap between men and women, as well as putting into practise the Beijing platform for action on women of 1995, which asked participants to create a package of measures targeting the causes of the gender pay gap and improving employment rates for women.
The pact, which still requires further work, should be adopted by the Employment and Social Affairs Council, on 7 March, and subsequently approved by the European Council of heads of state and government, at the end of March.
Commission road map
The European pact is a political text establishing the commitment of member states to gender equality. It accompanies the road map published by the Commission on 21 September 2010, which is based on five priorities: 1. equal economic independence; 2. equal pay; 3. equality in decision making; 4. end to gender-based violence; and 5. promotion of gender equality outside the EU.
