Brussels, 03/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission does not intend to replace its work document on gender equality for the post-2015 period with a communication. This was indicated by Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis during a debate at the European Parliament on Tuesday 2 February. In a resolution adopted the following day, MEPs expressed their dissatisfaction with this approach.
Equality between men and women is one of the founding principles of the European Union and is anchored in the Treaty and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. During the 2010-15 period, EU action was also guided by a gender equality strategy. The European Parliament and the Council were both in favour of renewing the strategy, as borne out by the parliamentary resolution on 9 June 2015 and the debate at the Employment and Social Affairs Council last December, during which only Finland, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Estonia and Poland refrained from making a contribution on the issue (see EUROPE 11447).
These appeals did not, however, convince the Commission. By invoking the “Better Regulation” principle, the latter decided to choose a work document on gender equality for the 2016-19 period.
According to Iratxe García Pérez (S&D, Spain), the problem arises from the fact that a work document does not have the same importance. This kind of document does not involve any earmarking of a specific budget and therefore does not in the long term include any evaluation and could lead to little progress being made.
In reply to MEPs, Andriukaitis indicated that the work document published on 3 December by the Commission constituted the “official college of commissioners' position”. He believes that resorting to a strategy is not necessarily a sign of progress and that “the Commission is committed to practical work for promoting gender equality”.
On Wednesday 3 February during the plenary session, MEPs reached an agreement (337 votes in favour, with 286 against) on a draft resolution submitted by the S&D, ALDE, GUE-NGL and Greens/EFA, which calls for the publication of the communication. They did not accept the resolution from the EPP group that insisted more on the need for results than the shape of the instrument or that from the ECR group in favour of improved imp