Brussels, 08/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - Statements celebrating International Women's Day on 8 March flowed continuously throughout the day. The European Parliament and Commission both called for more effort to be made to stop the discrimination to which women fall victim.
“Since the very start of our European project, the European Union has been committed to achieving gender equality both within our borders and across the globe. We are proud of what we have achieved so far (…) It is essential that we continue our efforts to integrate equality for women and men into every one of our policies across the board, in each of our member states and in the countries we work with. Also within the Commission we will continue our strong commitment to gender equality”, nine European commissioners said in a joint statement (Timmermans, Mogherini, Georgieva, Hahn, Mimica, Avramopoulos, Thyssen, Stylianides and Jourova).
The European Parliament, for its part, opted to dedicate International Women's Day more specifically to the situation of female refugees and asylum seekers in the EU. After a long discussion in plenary, the Parliament adopted two non-legislative resolutions, including one on the migrant crisis. This resolution calls on the Commission to pay more attention to the gender issue as part of the broader reforms on asylum and immigration policy. “Asylum is not neutral from the gender point of view and our politicians must take this into consideration. We need a holistic approach that takes account of gender at all stages of the asylum procedure”, said rapporteur Mary Honeyball (S&D, UK). The second resolution - adopted by 453 votes in favour, with 173 against - focuses on integrating the gender dimension into the European Parliament's work. It calls for the gender perspective to be integrated into the preparation, development, implementation and follow-up of EU policies. “The best way to promote equality is to show the example”, said rapporteur Angelika Mlinar (ALDE, Austria).
“Fighting against the glass ceiling which prevents women from moving up in their career, reducing the gender pay gap (which is still 16.4%), and encouraging female entrepreneurship (…) Improving women's economic situation is more than ever at the heart of the EPP Group's priorities”, said the European Parliament's EPP Group leader Manfred Weber.
Statements were not in short supply on the civil society side either. For example, the European Women's Lobby made a statement on the pension differences between men and women, while an email sent to the European External Action Service (EEAS) by the Copenhagen Initiative for Central America and Mexico (CICFA) and Grupo Sur called on the EU to encourage gender equality in Latin America. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)